


Code Icarus

by FestiveFerret



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anxiety, Avengers Family, Domestic, Falling In Love, Fear of Falling, Fears and Anxiety, Flying, Friends to Lovers, Hurt Steve Rogers, Insecure Steve Rogers, Learning to Lead, M/M, Missions and Battles, More like Antagonistic Coworkers to Friends to Lovers, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Post-Avengers (2012), Romance, Slow Build, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Steve occasionally needs a small shove (off a building) to get his shit together, Training, Trust Issues, falling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 09:02:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 55,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14638542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FestiveFerret/pseuds/FestiveFerret
Summary: Steve Rogers hates falling, but he hates being caught even more.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MusicalLuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicalLuna/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Code Icarus Art](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14638451) by [MusicalLuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicalLuna/pseuds/MusicalLuna). 



> Written for the Cap-Iron Man 2018 RBB. Thank you to MusicalLuna for being such a wonderful partner! And an absolutely incredible artist. This project was a blast :D
> 
> Check out MusicalLuna's amazing artwork on [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14638451) and on [tumblr](https://musicalluna-draws.tumblr.com/post/173871541957/my-art-for-my-rbb-with-festiveferret-who-wrote)

 

Steve fiddled with the edge of one of the manila envelopes and sighed, eyes pointed towards the window but unfocused. 

Was this what he had come back for? To fight another war? To carry on as a soldier, facing battle after battle until he eroded away the very thing Erskine had chosen him for: his heart?

How long could someone stay a good man when all they saw was the absolute futility of standing up for what they believed in?

Steve let his eyes shift into focus to trace the path of a dust mote as it danced in the piercing ray of sunrise that broke through his window and spilled on the small kitchen table. His apartment in Stark’s tower was nicely furnished and decorated, a perfect balance of the past and the future. It had comfort woven into the handmade afghan folded over the back of the couch and freedom in the large sunshine-filled windows. But it didn’t feel comforting or free to Steve. The space teased at the edges of nostalgia, bringing on the discomfort of things lost without the soothing balm of fond memories. It felt like someone else’s grandmother’s house; there was a distinct air of welcoming hominess, but it was foreign and untouchable. Like a photo album full of smiles and held hands, but all of people you’d never met. It was someone else’s safehouse, not his. 

He could change it, but to what?

He picked at the envelope again, flicking the sharp paper corner with his fingernail so it _ thwaped  _ against the tabletop. Six people… Six “extraordinary” people. And he was supposed to lead them.

The envelopes eventually drew Steve’s eyes back to the table, and he spread the files out in front of him. There had been a moment, out in the Middle of Nowhere, America, where he’d thought about not coming back. It wasn’t that the road trip had been that great - half of the things he wished were the same were different, and all the things he wished would have changed were stuck the same - but he wasn’t sure what he was coming back to. They probably would have come after him anyway; he was government property.

He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting from his ride across country. It wasn’t like he’d travelled much before the serum to have a point of comparison. He just needed to be… away, and getting on his bike and driving until he hit ocean seemed like the best way to be away. Stark had given him a phone before he left, and Natasha had promised him that it wasn’t lo-jacked. Or at least, wasn’t lo-jacked by SHIELD. Steve would eat his own cowl before he’d believe that Stark wasn’t able to track him. But he hadn’t cared about that. Besides, both SHIELD and Stark would be able to find him anywhere in a heartbeat, even if he hadn’t taken the phone, of that he was sure.

Natasha had been his only connection back to New York. They emailed, texted, occasionally called. She didn’t have much time to talk, but she gave what little she had to him, and he was eternally grateful for it. Somehow in this whole mess, he’d ended up with a friend - he honestly didn’t know how that had happened - and whenever he thought about it, it made all of this  _ shit  _ a little less hard to bear.

So he’d driven until he couldn't stand being uprooted anymore, until being alone was worse than being lonely in a crowd of people, and then he’d packed up and headed back to NY, right into Fury’s office. He’d dropped his bag, tucked his hands behind his back and said, “I accept.”

Fury smiled and handed him the packet of envelopes he now had laid out in front of him. “They’re all yours, Cap.”

So this was his team now, strikingly different from the Howlies, the men who had been his friends, his unit, not that long ago. To him, anyway. But this was a group cobbled together, not from some shared training or elite selection process, but because they possessed powers or abilities that were best kept under control, harnessed. And SHIELD expected him to be that harness. His fingers itched for the shield the way they always did when he felt threatened, but there was little it could to do guard him against the anxiety that welled up in his own chest. 

This was his team, but it certainly didn’t feel like it.

It was three days before he saw the team again in person. Fury called a meeting, which was irksome in its blatant disregard for Steve’s apparent leadership, but at the same time, he seemed unable to do it himself.

He looked around the table in Fury's conference room, trying - and almost certainly failing - to hide the fact that he was blatantly sizing up the group. Banner sat at the far end of the long table, sitting tall in a way that made it look like he was internally hunched up on himself and disguising it with false bravado. His eyes kept dancing from the table up to take a turn around the room then back down to where his hands were clasped in his lap. He radiated strength and fear in equal measure.

Banner was a tool Steve had no idea how to use. The Hulk was massively powerful, but it didn’t seem like Banner had much control over him. What good was strategy training with a man who wouldn’t even be in play if he became threatened?

Steve moved on to the next chair. Barton was the most comfortable, leaning back on the rear legs of his chair and twisting the end of a pen between his fingers like an arrow head. He was wearing most of his SHIELD-issued tac suit, the armoured vest un-velcroed and open at his chest, and he had three fingers on his left hand and one whole side of his neck covered in bandages. He was tapping his foot to a rhythm only he could hear. 

Barton seemed useful, and used to following orders, but from a massive, organized government agency, not from… a kid from Brooklyn. Still, Barton seemed nice enough, what little of him Steve had seen after Loki’s hold had been released. And Natasha trusted him.

Natasha was still on her mission, which left the chair next to Barton empty, and the next one was occupied by Thor. Thor was a bit of a mystery and not in a way that was at all amusing or intriguing. He claimed to be a god, which shook the steady foundations of Steve’s belief in a distinctively uncomfortable way, and he had the powers to back it up. Banner had called him an alien once, and while Steve was fully aware that aliens existed - he’d fought them himself - the Chitauri fit more appropriately with what he was expecting from extraterrestrials. Not a relentlessly positive, lightning-wielding “surfer-dude” (as Stark had so helpfully described him) who had a way of making everyone feel very useful and valued while at the same time making it absolutely clear that he cowed to none of their authority as tiny Earthlings.

And yet, even for all that, Thor wasn’t the one Steve was most concerned about leading. That title went unsurprisingly to the one member of the team who was supposed to be here and wasn’t. 

“Stark.”

Steve startled at Fury’s voice cutting through the silence that had settled over the room. His eyes flicked to the doorway, and there was Tony Stark, dressed in an impeccable suit that probably cost more money than Steve had ever seen in one place at one time, sunglasses on, takeaway coffee cup in hand, with his seemingly trademark, rude, condescending smirk splashed across his face. “Afternoon, Nick. I’d apologize for being late, but I can guarantee that what I was doing was more important.” He skirted around Banner’s chair to sit on the other side of the table, one seat away from Steve.

He settled his massive coffee cup on the table and whipped off his sunglasses, resting them next to it. His phone followed - a startlingly sleek sheet of glass and metal that made Steve feel clumsy just looking at it. After a long sip from his coffee, Stark picked up his phone again and started tapping on it dizzyingly fast. Steve looked away, back towards Fury, who cleared his throat.

“Well, now that we’re all here -” he shot an unamused look towards Stark “- I can say what I came to say and then get back to saving the world or whatever other unimportant shit I do with my time.”

Stark snorted quietly into his coffee cup, and Steve shot him a look which he ignored.

“Stark has agreed to finance the team which is good because, while we can work in tandem, the Avengers can’t work for SHIELD in any capacity. Romanov will be the liaison to SHIELD and work directly with Hill, but other than that, you guys are on your own now. You’ve all had your little vacations, but now it’s back to work. Cap, what’s the game plan for training?”

Steve tensed, feeling his cheeks heat, but before he could stammer out a reply, Stark spoke up again. “So, Rogers is leader, just like that? Did you have a vote before I got here? Rude.”

There was a sarcastic edge to his voice that Steve suspected meant he was more interested in riling Steve up than actually questioning his leadership. 

“Why? Did you want the job?” Barton asked with a raised eyebrow.

Stark shook his head and took a sip of his coffee. “Fuck, no. Just trying to figure out if this is cheerocracy or a cheertatorship.”

“It’s a team,” Steve bit back. “We work together.”

“But one of us makes the calls.” Stark met his eyes carefully, his gaze tense and piercing. “You.”

“Yes.” Fury tapped the end of his pen on the table, and everyone looked back at him. “My last move as commander of this bizarre little operation was to make Rogers the leader. If you guys decide to dick around with class president elections and shit, you’re welcome to do that but on your own time.”

Tony tipped his coffee cup in a conciliatory way but went back to smirking at his phone.

“So. If you can save your little domestics for the tower…” Fury said. “Rogers is mapping out a training plan. SHIELD will be outsourcing conflicts and missions to the Avengers, but on a contractor basis instead of as an in-house operation. That means you’ll have to pass regular screenings to keep your status - physical, psychological -” his eyes cut to Bruce for a split second “- but the day-to-day way you operate is up to you.” He stood. “That also means that you don’t come to me or Hill with your little squabbles anymore. If the water in your bathroom isn’t hot enough or your towels aren’t plush enough, you take it up with Stark.”

“Hey! Hotel Avengers never runs out of hot water. That baby is arc reactor powered and therefore always steamy, much like myself.” He winked at Steve who felt his lip curl. He’d never known someone to flirt so excessively, except for, well, Howard…

Everyone else stood as well, and Steve scrambled to his feet after them. Fury shot him an exasperated, two-finger salute and pushed out the door, leaving Steve with Stark, Barton, Banner, and Thor all looking at him expectantly.

“So… training,” Steve started. 

Stark made an impatient noise and looked at his phone. “Can you email it to me? I have to run.”

Steve’s stomach twisted. He was supposed to be in charge, and he knew that if he were Fury he’d snap out something witty and Stark would laugh and stay in his seat, but Steve’s cheeks were heating and he didn’t have anything witty to say. So he gave up. “Yeah, whatever. Look, I’ll email everyone with a training schedule, okay? You can go.” He clenched his hands into fists against his thighs as the team filed out. Banner reached out a hand and patted him on the shoulder as he passed, which only made Steve feel worse. 

He had a team, he was supposed to be their leader, and not only did he have no idea what he was doing, the very people he was supposed to be in charge of could tell and felt sorry for him. He stayed behind for ten minutes in the empty meeting room, convincing himself he was reviewing training plans, but deep down he knew why he really stayed: he didn’t want to bump into any of them on the way out.

**

Every morning for the next three days, Steve woke up and told himself - in a no-nonsense tone that sounded disturbingly like a combination between Bucky and his mother - that he was going to email the team to meet for drills the next day. And then he… wouldn’t. 

His apartment had never been cleaner - he’d even washed out and refilled all the spice jars he owned but never used. His files were in impeccable order. He’d read thirteen books on military training and leadership and yet…

He knew his teammates were carrying on their lives as usual in the tower below him, but he stayed in his suite, barely leaving except to go to the store for supplies or to sneak into the gym late at night and beat the stuffing out of as many heavy bags as he had time for. 

Breaking his knuckles open on the reinforced canvas eased the tension out of his shoulders and calmed the raging storm of anxiety in his stomach. The only sound in the room was the  _ thud thud  _ as his fists connected over and over. He could tell the seam was starting to give under the onslaught, the subtle change in tension cueing him to the inevitable breakdown. It was safe here, in the middle of the night, lights low enough that a non-super soldier might struggle to see. His teammates were all asleep, and Steve was free to just be a soldier instead of a captain. All he’d ever wanted was to be a good soldier.  _ A good man.  _

“You’re dropping your right elbow.” The voice cut through the rhythmic thumping, and Steve startled around, stumbling two steps back, skin heating as he registered how embarrassing it was for Captain America to be caught unawares. Then he relaxed and heaved a sigh.

“Natasha. You are the only person it’s not humiliating to be surprised by.”

She smiled like a cat. “Oh no, you should definitely still be humiliated. I smacked my bag on the doorway on the way in, and you didn’t even flinch.” She dropped the bag in question and crossed the room. As she stepped into the small pool of light, Steve saw she was still in her tac suit, a streak of mud darkening one thigh.

He sighed again and shrugged. “I was lost in thought. You just get back?”

“No, I like walking around in my tac gear toting a go bag that smells like junior agent sweat and blood for hours, sometimes days, after returning.” Her eyes twinkled, and Steve shook his head, smiling.

“I was making small talk, Romanoff.”

“You only do that when you’re avoiding big talk, Rogers.” She unzipped the top half of her tac suit and slithered out of it, revealing a light grey tank top with the SHIELD insignia on it and a painful-looking, three-inch gash on her upper arm.

Steve winced and gestured towards it with a questioning tilt of his head. She gave the cut a considering look and started to shake her head then shrugged instead and nodded. She led the way into the locker rooms, unhesitatingly walking into the men’s room with Steve in tow behind her.

“So what’s up?” she said, stuffing a handful of paper towels under the tap.

Steve dug the first aid kit out of the cupboard in the corner and started pawing through it. “Not much. Not much happened while you were gone.”

“Is that so?” she drawled, her lips quirking up in a half-smile.

Steve frowned at her, then grabbed the paper towels she was scraping roughly over the cut. He folded them and re-wetted the clean side then dabbed carefully at the gash until it was clean and the edges were clear. “We met with Fury…” he started, then regretted it when she smiled.

“I know. I heard about it.” She turned to lean back against the counter, and Steve tossed the paper towels in the trash and dug out the butterfly bandages. Really, she should get stitches, but he knew she wasn’t going to and at least this would help keep it closed and clean. 

“Heard what?” He grit his teeth against her self-satisfied tone.

“Heard you weren’t exactly thrilled to take on the leadership role. Heard Stark wasn’t exactly thrilled either.” She hissed a tiny puff of air between her teeth, the first sign of pain she’d shown, as Steve pressed a butterfly over the gash, holding the sides together with his other hand. “Also heard you have yet to release a training plan to the team, despite promising one three days ago.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“You think you’re the only Avenger I exchange emails with?”

Steve huffed with displeasure. “Figured Clint wouldn’t mind a delay in training,” he grumbled.

She laughed, then winced again as he pressed on the last bandage. He stepped away to wash his hands, and she stretched tall, the top of her tac suit hanging down around her waist. In the starker light of the bathroom, Steve could see the mottled pattern of bruising that travelled down her arms and disappeared under the hem of her tank top. She also looked tired, which was unusual for Natasha. Tired of someone’s shit, sure, but rarely physically exhausted. 

“You okay?” he couldn't help but ask.

She blinked at him. “I will be.” She stretched again, and they walked out of the bathroom and back into the gym. Steve’s heavy bag still hung from the ceiling, and he tapped his fist against it, making it swing back and forth on its hook. “So what’s the deal, Rogers?” she asked. “Afraid or angry?”

“What?”

“Why don’t you want to lead the team? You afraid to? Or angry that you’re being asked to?”

Steve opened and closed his mouth a few times then turned back to the punching bag and hit it three times in rapid succession, feeling the serum-powered muscles in his shoulders and back clench and release, transferring their power into his fist. When he connected, a tiny puff of dust shot out between two stitches in the weakening seam, so slight that only his super-sight would catch it. “Afraid… I guess,” he finally mumbled.

Natasha hopped up to sit on the balance beam nearby, swinging her legs a little. “Afraid of what?” she asked evenly, and Steve was grateful for her lack of judgement.

“Afraid of… I don’t know.” He struck again.  _ Thud, thud, thud.  _ “Afraid of screwing it up, of getting someone hurt… killed. Afraid of humiliating myself by making a stupid mistake.”  _ Thud.  _ “Afraid to be a -”  _ thud.  _ “- leader.” He stepped back sharply from the bag, halting its swing with one hand before spinning away and twining his fingers together, stretching them out.

“You’ve led people before.”

“It was different with the Howlies. We weren’t… organized. We were just a bunch of idiots running around trying to take out HYDRA bases. It was just mud and guns and trying to stay alive and maybe do some good at the same time. Those guys chose to follow me, but I would have followed any one of them in a heartbeat. That’s why it worked.”

“You wouldn’t follow any of the rest of us?” Nat asked, lips twitching up again.

“You, I’d follow you.” Steve gestured towards her. “I _ should  _ be following you. You should lead the Avengers. You’d do a better job, that’s for sure.”

She shook her head. “No way. I’m a creature of the shadows, we’re not made to lead. You can do this. You will screw up.” He shot her a look, and she smiled again. “But you’re also the only one who can bring this team together. Clint and I… we’re not built for that. We can follow, we can help train, but we can’t lead. Can’t lead and still be effective at our jobs. Banner is too caught up in his own stuff, he lacks the focus needed. Thor’s heart is half in Dr. Foster’s pocket and half on Asgard, so we’re lucky he’s here at all.”

“And Stark,” Steve bit out.

“Touched a nerve?” Nat hopped off the balance beam with enviable grace and came to stand behind the punching bag, wrapping her arms around it and bracing her feet. “I hear you and Stark have had words.”

Steve feinted left, right, then smacked the bag in the centre, pulling his punch so Nat would barely feel it. “Unlikely, when he won’t even give me the time of day let alone actual words to have.” Steve winced at how much like a petulant kid he sounded.

“Wanna grapple?” Nat asked, rolling out her shoulders, and Steve considered it, but shook his head.

“It’s the middle of the night, we should sleep. You need to heal.”

“It’s superficial.”

“I just taped you back into one piece.”

“That’s because you like to feel useful.” Nat tugged at her tac suit, but Steve landed a hand on her arm to still her.

“Thanks, but I think I’m going to go to bed.”

“Sure you are.” Nat clapped him on the back. Steve tidied up his stuff and followed her to the doorway. She grabbed her bag and led the way to the elevator. 

Steve stretched out his arms as they rode up, floors flickering past as they made their way to the private Avengers quarters sitting underneath Tony’s penthouse. 

“This team could be great, but it’s in need of a major overhaul, Rogers. You can bring us together but not by sitting on your ass. I’ve got your back on this, but you -” She poked him in the arm “- need to take charge.” Steve’s eyes cut down to the floor, and he felt his face twist into a scowl. The doors chimed and opened, Natasha’s front door appearing at the end of the hall. She stepped out then turned back and slammed her hand over the door to stop it from closing again. “And that starts with training.”

He nodded sharply. “Night, Nat.”

“Night, Cap.” She pulled her hand back, and the doors closed over her kind smile.

Steve watched the light tick along past the next two floors, and then the elevator chimed, and the doors slid open again at his floor. He kicked his shoes off by the door and pulled his shirt off, tossing it, and the rest of his clothes, in the hamper as he walked through his bedroom to the bathroom. The cool water of the shower did little to calm his roiling mind, but it soothed the ache in his shoulders and slowed his pounding heart and short breath. 

By the time he stepped out, slightly chilled but clean and refreshed, he knew what he had to do. He pulled on clean boxers then grabbed the novel he was reading and his laptop - the one Stark had left on the kitchen counter for him the day he'd moved in - and settled into bed. It took him twenty minutes to compose the email, but once he had, he took a deep, settling breath and hit send. 

He stared at the screen for a long time, as if he’d hear something back at three in the morning, as if Stark would find a way to say something snarky in reply mere moments after receiving the email, even though he was surely sleeping, two stories above Steve. He finally closed the laptop and set it aside, turning to his book instead as the clock ticked on towards morning.

_ To: avengers-team.list  
_ _ From:  _ [ _ rogers.steve@avengers.com _ ](mailto:rogers.steve@avengers.com)

_ Training starts at 8am on Thursday in the Avengers Tower gym. We’ll be doing team strategy drills and strength and coordination training. See you there. _

_ -Steve _


	2. Chapter 2

Steve wasn’t surprised when Stark didn’t show. 

Nat was already in the gym when Steve arrived Thursday morning, warming up with gentle stretches, and Clint joined them soon after. By the time Banner and Thor showed up, right at 8am, Clint and Nat were already grappling playfully on the mats. Steve hovered awkwardly by the side of the gym, half waiting for Stark and half using his absence as an excuse to put off starting the drills. But Nat shot him a raised eyebrow from where she sat on the mats, and Steve pushed himself away from the wall and joined the group. 

“Alright. I’ve been thinking about it,” he started, hoping he sounded collected and confident, “and I think it’s best to start with the basics. We all have our own special skill sets, but all we know about each other is what we’ve read in files and newspapers. So, I thought we could each lead the group in one of our training drills. That way we can get an idea of how our teammates think and where our strengths lie.”

“Good plan, Cap,” Clint said, flexing his fingers inside his gloves. 

They started simple, on the mats, basic hand-to-hand. While the others stretched and warmed up, Bruce approached Steve, his fingers twisting and his shoulders hunching forward in a way that Steve was starting to recognize. “Hey, you, uh, don’t want me doing that, do you?”

He’d thought about it a lot the night before, after sending his email. What was the best way to incorporate Bruce and the Hulk in training? “Actually I do," he said. “There are two things I want to work on. I want to see how threatened you can get, how rough a fight can be, before you feel the urge to change. And I want to see if there are things we can do to help you control the change better. Maybe a way to bring you down from it? We can meet up and talk about it. But for today, yeah, I want you in there. You’re an Avenger, Bruce, you need to be able to defend yourself in basic hand-to-hand without the, uh, other guy.”

Bruce nodded, accepting it surprisingly easily. Steve paired Nat up with Bruce; she was the best teacher in the group and could get him started with basic combat. That left him with Clint and Thor so they rotated. They started with basic sparring, all of which the three of them excelled at. Steve was pleased to see that even though Clint had no superserum and no alien magic, he could still hold his own by focusing on speed and dodging. 

After an hour, they were all sweaty. Steve glanced over to see Natasha standing behind Bruce and adjusting his stance, but Bruce was started to look a little pink and overwhelmed, so Steve called them over.

“Alright, let’s have some time to show off our individual special skills. Nat? You want to show us what you’ve got?”

From then on, it went more easily than Steve had expected. Nat led everyone through some martial arts exercises, Thor showed them how to improve their hand-to-hand, and Clint started a lesson on archery just as the time ran out. It wasn't perfect, but it was progress.

“Alright, that was great guys. We’ll meet again on Monday for group training.” Steve watched the team file to the door, Thor swinging an arm around Bruce’s shoulders and gesturing wildly as they slipped out. When the gym was empty, Steve crumpled down to a nearby bench. He’d done it. He’d survived his first training session, and it had been… okay. At least, no one had seemed outwardly upset by his choices. He knew he didn’t sound confident enough and he looked to Nat too much for guidance, but it was working. He could figure this out. 

The only thing he had left to figure out was Stark.

There was neither hide nor hair of their contrary benefactor until Steve went to the common kitchen in the evening to make a snack. He was out of bread, so he hit up the full stock that always seemed to be downstairs.

A flash of movement caught Steve’s eye, and he looked out the long bank of windows to see Stark on the balcony, pacing back and forth and gesturing wildly. He was talking, and Steve had to assume he had some sort of fancy invisible phone technology, because he was out there alone. He didn’t look happy.

While Steve spread peanut butter on a slice of bread, Stark pinched the bridge of his nose and bit out words that didn’t look like they tasted very nice. By the time Steve had a plate of sandwiches, Stark’s call was over, and he stalked back inside, ripping a tiny headset out of his ear and tossing it aside.

He had dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was sticking up on one side. He didn’t acknowledge Steve’s presence, crossing the kitchen to pull a water bottle out of the fridge without a word. And in a flash, Steve was filled with hot, acidic anger. It was so damn  _ frustrating  _ that they were supposed to be a team, and Stark completely ignored Steve, defied his authority, waltzing around doing whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted.

“You didn’t show this morning,” fell out of Steve’s mouth.

Stark shot him a cutting look. “I was busy.” He whipped the cap from his water bottle into the recycling with way more force than was necessary and stomped out of the kitchen and into the elevator. Steve could hear his razor-edged tone snapping at JARVIS as the elevator pulled away.

Steve stood staring after him for several minutes before hightailing it up the stairs to Natasha’s floor. He knocked, even though he knew JARVIS would have announced his arrival already and he heard Nat’s distant voice calling him in. He pushed inside and collapsed on the couch with his plate. He could hear the water running in her bathroom so he settled down to wait. 

Nat's apartment was simple and sleek, a combination of dark wood and tempered glass. She'd already been living here when Steve moved in, so he didn't know if Stark had decorated like this for her, or if she'd changed it. There were surprising, little, personal pieces dotted around the room, once you started looking. A ratty looking stuffed bear between two books on a shelf, a cheap picture frame with a blurry shot of a man's back on her desk, a lime green ceramic pot with a spider plant spilling adventurously over the sides hanging by the door to the balcony. It felt homey here. And safe.

Steve shifted down on the couch and nibbled at his last sandwich. A moment later, she appeared in a bathrobe. She sat on his feet and started doing something with her nails that looked like she was attempting to remove them entirely with a large block of sandpaper. 

"Tell me I did alright," Steve said with a weary sigh then shoved the rest of the last sandwich in his mouth.

She patted his knee. "You did great, champ."

"Maybe without the patronization?"

"Sorry. You can have the pep talk, or no patronization, but not both." She went back to attacking her nails.

Steve thought it over for a moment. "I guess I'll take the patronization then."

Nat chuckled to herself, and opened her mouth, but before she could speak, the door to her apartment flew open and Clint marched in. "Oh, hey, sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt," he said, not sounding sorry at all.

Nat rolled her eyes. "If you actually didn't care about interrupting me, you'd bother to knock."

"I didn't think there was anything you could be doing that I would be interrupting."

"I could have  _ someone  _ over." She lifted an eyebrow in Clint's direction.

"But you don't. It's just Cap." He turned to Steve. "No offense."

"None taken."

Natasha went on. "But I  _ could  _ have someone over. And you might have gotten an eyeful you couldn't take back."

Clint considered Nat's bathrobe-clad form on an angle. "I think after years of therapy and possibly some sort of lobotomy I could recover from that."

Nat threw her sandpaper block at Clint who leapt to the side just in time to dodge it. 

"So what are we doing?" Clint asked, picking up the nail block and tossing it back.

"We're patronizing Captain America."

Clint shot Steve a curious look, and he shrugged. Clint collapsed into an armchair next to the couch and threw his legs over the arm into Nat's lap. She handed the remote to Steve and pulled Clint's shoes off, then began to apply the sandpaper block to his toenails instead. It looked like a unique brand of torture, but Clint didn't seem bothered, instead his eyes drifted shut.

Steve focused on flipping through channels, squirming in the discomfort of feeling like a third wheel. A decades-spanning friendship like Natasha and Clint's was pretty intimidating to intrude on, and Steve didn't know how to excuse himself without being awkward. But as time ticked on, it became clearer and clearer that, to the two spies, Steve wasn't intruding at all. Clint included him in conversation as easily as Nat did, and once Nat had finished painting his toenails bright purple, Clint sicced her on Steve with a bottle of blue. 

"How about I do yours, instead?" Steve offered, shifting his feet away from Nat. "I am an artist after all." He wiggled his fingers. "Steady hands."

"Alright, you get out of it this time," Nat said, dropping her feet over Steve's thighs, "but it's just a raincheck, Rogers." One corner of her lips quirked up, and her eyes twinkled. Steve grabbed the bottle and set to work, the quiet focus of brushing on the polish calming the last of his uneasiness. By the time Nat's feet were blue and sparkly, Clint was on a full-on rant about people who dressed their dogs in designer clothes, and Steve didn't feel weird about teasingly prodding him to rant on, hiding his cheeky grin in his forearm where he rested on it against the arm of the couch.

Nat poked Steve in the ribs with her toes when he very seriously suggested that the dogs self-esteem might be a factor, and Steve burst out laughing, giving up the game.

"Oh, fuck you, Cap," Clint said without heat, laughing himself.

They spent the rest of the afternoon together, watching their way through a Terminator marathon, and for the first time since Steve had landed in the 21st-century, he felt like he was at home.

**

It was upsettingly easy to have everything done for you, when your home was run by a powerful AI and owned by the richest man in the country. JARVIS could order all of Steve's groceries and Stark wouldn't even notice if Steve added his own laundry to the list of things the cleaning service handled, but it didn't feel right, somehow, or maybe it didn't feel comfortable, to have all of that autonomy taken away. So, Steve kept his chores to himself.

He packed up a few bags with his dry cleaning and a set of headphones he wanted to return then took the elevator out of the tower. 

The business and bustle of the streets didn't really bother him, never had, and the bright lights and looming ads were something he got used to, but the subtle social conventions that were required to get through any kind of interaction like this were the hardest. Steve always felt like he was walking on his tiptoes, always thinking someone was flirting when they were, or weren't when they were. Always having to nod and smile and then furiously google things on his phone; that, he was getting very good at.

But he made himself go out, and it was getting easier and easier. He had a little grocery store he liked, run by a Korean family who recognized all of the Avengers by now and forgave him his little missteps. There was a cafe that didn't mind if he sat and sketched, nursing a cup of coffee for far too long. The dry cleaner's daughter had just gone off to university, and her dad was missing her terribly. 

What had started out as nothing more than a grey sky, had turned into a steady drizzle, and Steve found himself wishing he'd brought a hoodie to layer under his jacket. He walked as briskly as he could, refusing to get a cab for only a few short blocks, head down, dodging the rapidly accumulating puddles on the sidewalk. Rain glued his hair to his forehead and dripped down the back of his jacket collar, sending a shiver down his spine. His wait at the customer service counter to return the headphones was just long enough to dry off a little, only for him to get completely re-soaked on his way to the grocery store. 

He left a snail trial of damp as he shuffled around the store, picking up the few things he needed. It took him so long to decide in the flower section that a glance at his watch had him huffing out a frustrated sigh and grabbing something at random before turning towards the checkout.

A young girl yelped and scurried out of the way, holding up both hands. She had a Captain America hat on and was blushing and staring at him in a way that made him think she'd just been working up the nerve to talk to him when he spun around. 

"I'm sorry!" He resisted the urge to step closer. No one had minded him stepping closer when he was small, but now, now he knew he could be intimidating. But the girl was already shifting into a shy smile. "You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah… you're, um -" She pointed to her hat.

He nodded and crouched down to her level, ignoring the way his damp socks squeaked in his shoes. "I'm Steve." He held out his hand. "What's your name?"

"Sophie."

"Hi, Sophie." She stuck her small hand in his, and he shook it twice then let it go.

"I think you're the best." Her eyes went wide and serious. "My mom likes Iron Man cause she says he can 'get it' but I don't know what that means, and I think the red robot suit is a little bit scary. But I always thought you were nice."

Steve's face attempted to contort into fourteen different expressions all at once, but he managed to keep a passive smile on. "Well… thank you. Iron Man is pretty great too. He saved us all."  _ Too bad his driver is an asshole,  _ he added in his head.

"Will you maybe sign my hat?" The girl pulled her hat off, revealing a wild halo of dark brown curls and held it out to him. 

"Sure." He patted his pockets. "I don't have a -"

"Hold on!" She left the hat in his hands and darted off down the aisle, disappearing behind a display of peanut butter.

Steve hovered awkwardly among the buckets of bouquets, breathing shallowly to stop the overpoweringly sweet scent from turning his stomach, the girl's hat clutched in his hand. He looked up to find an elderly man giving him a suspicious look, and he shot him a smile and a nod then looked firmly away. 

A few uncomfortable minutes later, the girl tore around the corner of the peanut butter display again, barely avoiding sending the stack flying, and arrived at Steve's side, panting, a black sharpie held in her hand. She offered it to him, and he took it. 

"Just my name?" he asked. She nodded. He uncapped the marker and tried to find a way to hold the hat that was flat enough to write on. While he was scribbling his name next to the shield patch on the front, a woman appeared at Sophie's side. She had a shopping cart with a baby carrier on it and stacks of groceries inside. 

"Oh, wow, it really is you." 

Steve finished his name and handed the hat back. Sophie beamed at it. "Uh, yes. Steve Rogers, ma'am. I hope you don't mind. She just wanted an autograph."

"Oh no, of course not. I just, when she said she met Captain America, you know." Sophie's mom winked. 

"Right. Well… it's really me." It was somehow more awkward talking to another adult than to the child. He hadn't worried about embarrassing himself in front of Sophie, but with Sophie's mom it was all he could think about. He never thought he was any good with kids, but in this case…

"Wow," she repeated. "So you know Iron Man then?"

Steve opened and closed his mouth. He settled for, "Yes."

"Wow."

Steve rocked back and forth on his heels. He looked up and the old man was still watching, but now, instead of looking suspicious, he rolled his eyes and sighed. Steve turned back to the woman and her daughter. "Sorry, I…" he lifted his groceries in an apologetic sort of way. 

"Oh! Oh, of course. I'm so sorry to keep you. Sophie, did you say thank you?" 

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. Stay in school."

She wrinkled her nose at him. "Why wouldn't I stay in school?"

"Um, right. Well, it was nice meeting you, bye!" Steve bolted for the cash register. He'd meant to buy tea as well, but all he wanted now was to get out of there, and, by now, he was really, really late. He paid, bagged his things himself to save time and hustled out into the street. The rain had stopped, and the damp air was crisp which instantly banished the hot flush from his cheeks. It smelled wet and fresh outside, even with the city grunge layered over top, and Steve breathed in deeply, clearing the smell of roses from his nose.

He walked two blocks, just to clear his head, then called a cab. He paid the driver to wait at the tower while he ran up. The few groceries that weren't coming with him went in the cupboards, then he changed and grabbed the duffle he'd packed that morning. The driver took him to JFK, and Steve began his monthly trek to London once again.

The plane ride over was fine. Steve pulled his cap low over his eyes and leaned his head against the window. It had been hard, at first, to justify spending so much on first class tickets, but after the third time he'd been seated next to someone who knew him, he found it easier to spend the extra for a little privacy. He didn't want to talk to tourist after tourist who wanted to hear all about the battle for New York, and he didn't want to be asked if he was "Heading to London for something fun?"

The trip passed quickly, his body and mind used to long bouts of boring travel now. In some ways, it was nice to have a reason to sit quietly for a few hours, unreachable. Nat knew where he was, and she knew how to get a hold of him if she really had to, so as long as the flight crew wasn't handing him a message she'd hacked onto their navigation screens or something, he ignored his phone.

He only had a carry-on, so when the plane let out, he breezed through customs then followed the familiar path out to the taxi stand.

The address he gave the cabbie weighed heavy on his tongue. He was torn - half of him desperate to go there and half of him desperate to go anywhere else. He fiddled with the torn plastic handle of the grocery bag that stuck out of his duffle, twisting it around his fingers, stretching it out until he could see his skin through the thinned, green plastic, then twisting it up again.

At the care home, the staff knew him, half because of how often he came here, and half for the same reason that Sophie had known him. It was a strange feeling, watching them all smile sadly at him as he walked down the too-long hallway to a blue door at the end. He knocked before letting himself in.

Peggy lay on the bed, carefully tucked in. The TV was off, but the curtains were pulled wide and her face was turned towards the outside world, eyes open. She didn't acknowledge Steve's presence. 

He tucked his bags in the corner then pulled out the flowers he'd bought, fluffing up the flattened blooms. A vase held last week's selection from the flower service he paid to come on the weeks that he didn't - lilies - but they were well-wilted at this point. He tugged them out and tossed them, then replaced them with the new ones. It was silly to bring them all the way from the US when there were plenty of stores here that sold them. He probably wasn't even allowed to bring flowers in, but no one ever stopped him. It was silly, and they were always a bit squashed from travel, but he wanted to bring her something, to show her that he was thinking about her even when there was an ocean between them, and he didn't know what else to do. He'd chosen daisies in his rush at the store, not his favourite nor Peggy's, but variety was still nice. He turned the vase on her bedside table until the nicest side faced her. 

She turned now and smiled vacantly at them before reaching out and rubbing her fingers gently over the petals. "Lovely," she said. 

"I'm glad you like them."

At his voice she turned to look up at him. She stared at him in blank disinterest for a moment then understanding dawned. Steve's heart clenched as he waited to see if he would bring her a glowing smile or pained tears today. He breathed easy when it was a smile. 

"Steve! You're back. I missed you."

Steve wasn't sure if she meant from last month, or from seventy years ago, but he rolled with it. "I missed you too." He settled into the chair next to her bed and reached out to take her thin, wrinkled hand. 

"It was cold last time you were here."

"Was it?"

"Yes." She squeezed his hand. "How is New York? Are you settling in well at that tower?"

Steve suppressed the urge to sigh in relief that she was with him today, in the present. "It's fine. It's hard work, this team. It's so different from before, with the Howlies. Everyone's looking to me to lead…"

"Well, they're looking in the right place then," she said firmly.

Steve shot her a look. "You were always the natural-born leader, Peggy. Not me."

"Pff." She waved her free hand. "Natural nothing. I learned it and earned it. Hard work, you're not wrong about that. But you'll do great, Steve, I believe in you."

"Thank you." Steve reached up to brush her hair away from her eyes, and she fluttered them closed. When they opened again, there was something missing from them, and Steve's heart broke all over again, broke for the hundredth time. But with the serum knitting him back together, it could break over and over, rip straight down the centre, then sew itself back into one piece just in time to break again.

"Hello," Peggy said, a slight wrinkle between her brows.

"Hi, Peggy." Steve had learned it was less upsetting for her if he brushed right past her confusion. "Would you like me to read to you?"

"Oh yes, thank you. That sounds lovely. You're very kind to read to an old woman."

"Well, I'm here for you," he said softly. He opened the second drawer of her bedside table and took out an old, battered copy of  _ The Wonderful Wizard of Oz _ . She settled down on her pillows and closed her eyes again. She'd be asleep soon - she slept so much now - and Steve would leave. Tomorrow, he'd be back for the morning, and then he'd fly home that night. And the next month, he'd repeat the trip again. Sometimes she'd know him, sometimes she wouldn't. Sometimes it would be 1944, sometimes it would be 2012. Sometimes she wouldn't know what year it was, and seeing Steve would make her cry and cry for reasons she couldn't even explain, and he would have to go, unable to be the cause of her pain any longer.

For now, he opened the book, and he started reading. "Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife..."

**

Stark did show for the next training session, but as far as Steve could tell, he spent most of the time talking to JARVIS inside the helmet. He still found time to give everyone a run down on his skills, like the others had, though his was mostly sass and flirty jokes instead of a serious presentation. By the end, Steve’s jaw had ratcheted so tight, he expected to start hearing his teeth cracking.

But when they moved into sparring, Stark’s attention appeared to be all theirs. They rotated in pairs, trading out every fifteen minutes. Part of Steve’s plan had been for each of them to offer criticism to their sparring partner to give them a different perspective. But so far, from what Steve could tell, either they were unwilling to criticize, the criticism wasn’t taken kindly, or the comments were so confusing they only made things worse. 

Their varied backgrounds didn’t help, and Thor was the only one who had any experience fighting in a team like this. Clint and Natasha were used to being  _ part  _ of a team, but they did most of their actual fighting on their own with a handler’s voice in their ear. Thor worked with a group of warriors who had the same background he did and understood all of his Asgardian references. 

Banner didn't want to fight at all.

And Stark… well, Steve was pretty sure Stark had never had to work on a team in his life. He was flippant, dismissive, confusing, and always rushed. The few times Steve had managed to engage him in a dialogue about his fighting style, Stark’s phone had rung, and he was gone. 

The more they practiced, the more terrified Steve became of how their first battle post-Chitauri would go.


	3. Chapter 3

“Okay, this is what we’ve practiced for!” Steve called out as they hit the ground. “Formations - Thor, get Hawkeye some high ground. Widow, you’re with me. Banner?”

“Ready and waiting,” Bruce crackled through the comm. Steve flexed his fingers in his gloves and hoped they wouldn’t need a Code Green.

They burst out of the back of the quinjet as the bay door lowered to the ground then screeched to a halt as one, stunned.

“Holy shit, she wasn’t kidding,” Nat said, tipping her chin up to watch as a slow-dripping stream of bright orange goop fell from an open wound in the sky to the sidewalk below. 

The briefing from Hill had said “sentient sludge” which was a term Steve definitely hadn’t come across before, but it didn’t look like fun. It was thick and shiny, flowing down the street in a slow, viscous roll like lava creeping down a mountainside, slow but inevitable, and that made it terrifying. It had already coated one long block, and the authorities had evacuated five more just in case.

“Get moving!” Steve shouted, and the team sprung into action. Thor lifted Clint straight off the ground, headed for a nearby rooftop with the best sightlines. Nat disappeared, and Steve trusted that she was making her away around to the other side of the substance. The “sentient” part of “sentient sludge” was rather worrying, and none of the reports had said exactly what that meant. Steve could hear the roar of repulsors above, but he paid little heed to what Stark was doing. Steve raised the shield and jogged down the street. If this thing had an attention, he wanted it focused on him.

“Hey!” Steve called as he approached it. “You’re invading our territory. Fair warning. We won’t take that lightly.” He stopped a few feet away from the slowly approaching edge. The material was so viscous it looked nearly solid, and the way it moved was almost entrancing, easing towards him. He resisted a strange urge to touch it. It didn't appear to be senti- “Gah!”

Steve darted backwards and raised the shield - the creature had responded. And it was clear now that it was a creature. A spire burst out of the centre of the puddle, shooting up forty feet before curling back down and snapping out towards Steve. “Hostile!” Steve panted as he ran. “Definitely hostile!”

“Weaknesses?” Nat called out.

“Well, it doesn’t seem to enjoy being threatened,” Steve said, coming to a stop behind a wall, the shield held up defensively. But now that he had retreated, the creature didn't seem too bothered. The spire retreated, and it continued its mellow consumption of the street. “Stark?”

“Nothing much on the goo itself,” Stark said, “but I’ve got a read on the portal it’s coming in through. The Chitauri portal weakened the gaps between worlds in some places, and it seems someone or something has taken advantage of that. It's pretty interesting, actually. If I could just…” He trailed off, sounding almost excited, and Steve grit his teeth.

“Will you stop messing about with science and close the damn thing?”

There was a cold beat of silence, and then Stark bit back cooly, “This ‘messing about with science’ is going to prevent more things like this happening in the future, Cap. If I can get readings on this instance, I might be able to locate the other weak points and strengthen them before they're taken advantage of.”

“In the meantime, it’s having Midtown for lunch, so you’d better hurry.”

“Fast as I can.”

Steve heard repulsors again and peered around the wall to see Stark zipping through the sky towards the portal. His heart skipped a beat then jumped back to life painfully quickly. “You’re not going through that, are you?” The last time, that hadn’t gone well. And Steve had almost closed -

“No fucking way. I just have to be close.” Another glob of orange sludge dripped through the dark slice in the sky, and Stark twisted in midair to avoid it. Steve’s attention was so focused on Iron Man’s path that he didn’t notice until it was too late that the creature was sending up another spire.

“Iron Man!” Thor called, and Stark veered off wildly to the left as the spire swung towards him.

Stark swore viciously through the comm, and Steve echoed his words in his own head. That should have been him calling that, he wasn’t paying attention. He pushed out from behind the wall and ran back towards the edge of the thing. “We need to get its attention focused on us while Iron Man inspects the portal.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Nat said. Steve’s prediction had been correct, Nat was now on the other side of the advancing goop, facing Steve from the end of the street. He watched as she tossed a stun disc onto its shiny surface. The disc snapped and popped and the creature shuddered all over and answered any lingering questions as to whether it was one creature or many.

Steve took the opportunity to fling his shield at the base of the spire that was still chasing Iron Man across the sky. It hit dead on, and with a sound like a whip crack, the spire retracted back into the puddle. A half-second later it shot out again, headed straight for Steve, and collided with him, just as he caught the returning shield out of the air and snapped it into place in front of him. The impact knocked him airborne, and he landed on an abandoned car, feeling the glass crack under him. Pain rippled through his limbs, but he tamped it down and rolled off, turning back towards the alien beast. It had turned its attention once more to Nat, who was dodging its attacks.

Steve was breathing heavily when he came back on the comm. “Okay, Thor. It doesn’t seem to like electricity. Give it your best shot.”

The sky cracked open with a gunshot and boomed with a roll of thunder as streaks of lightning convened on Thor’s raised hammer. He roared, cape billowing around him in the suddenly cloudy sky, then aimed Mjolnir at the creature. A burst of lightning crackled out of the hammer and struck the spire, jolting down to the main body below. It was silent, but Steve could see the pain ripple across its body. The spire disappeared, sucked back into the puddle, and there was a long moment of held breath. The sky began to clear as Thor’s magic dissipated, and then, with an alrighty whip crack, the creature exploded with new spires, a sea of angry tentacles bursting out of its core. There were so many, and they took up so much of the gooey substance, that its body retreated from the street, convening into a writhing ball of flailing limbs right under the still-open portal.

“Stark…” Steve warned, jogging down the street towards the new form, his fingers clenching where they gripped the straps on his shield. 

“Almost there, Cap, hold your horses.”

Steve grit his teeth and bit back a retort; it wouldn’t do them much good, and he needed to focus on the creature. It sent its long tendrils shooting out, one towards each of the gathered Avengers. Steve raised the shield and braced his feet this time, absorbing the impact, then swinging out hard to catch the end of the limb. It retreated, but only for a moment, before striking towards him again. He fended it off, but didn’t seem to be doing any damage of his own, and after several minutes of frustrating lack of progress, he growled out, “Status!”

“It definitely doesn't like being shocked,” Nat called out, “But it doesn’t slow it down much.” She was breathing heavily.

“Lightning is keeping it off my back -” the air crackled with heavy static again “- but how do you injure this thing? I’ve never seen anything like it,” Thor said.

“Hawkeye?”

“There’s a centre to it,” Clint said, and Steve sighed with relief. “It’s small but there’s a heart, or a brain or something. It’s protecting it fiercely, keeping it close in the middle instead of out in the tentacles. If some of the goo shifted, I might be able to get a shot. As it is, my arrows don’t do much to this stuff. They go in an inch, maybe two, and it just pushes them out again.”

Shift the goo… “What if we made it stretch out its tentacles in as many directions as possible? Would that work?”

Before anyone could answer Steve, Stark spoke up. “Readings are done, Cap. Should I close it?”

“No! Wait. We don’t know if we can kill this thing. If we can’t, we have to send it back through. Unless you know how to open it again, leave it for now.”

“Roger, roger.”

Steve swung his shield again, knocking back two of the tentacles that were pestering him now.

“It could work,” Nat said, apparently answering his earlier question. “Stretch it out far, it has limited substance, right? So it’ll use it up.” She grunted with effort. “And it seems pretty pissed off, I have a feeling it’ll chase us.”

“Okay.” Steve took a few steps back. He needed space to think, but the creature stretched out to reach him and swung again, nearly taken out his feet. “Okay. yeah. Thor and Iron Man, fly high in oppostire directions, use your weapons and lightning to draw it towards you. Widow, to the north, I’ll go to the south. Hawkeye, if you get the shot, take it. If you take it, and it doesn’t bring this thing down, we’ve got a Code Green. We can’t afford to let this thing get any bigger.”

Everyone checked in affirmative, and with a big steadying breath, Steve called the order, then turned and ran. 

The creature chased after him, stretching its long spire out after him and moving almost as quickly as he could at full speed. He turned to look over his shoulder, and it was right behind him, he pushed faster. At the end of the block, he made a long sweeping turn around the corner, but the tentacle didn’t follow him, shrinking back instead of bending. He sighed and broke back into the open, throwing the shield to call its attention to him once more. Either it couldn't turn, or its vision was somehow inside the puddle of goo, because it didn’t seem inclined to chase him around corners, as badly as it seemed to want him.

It attacked with a vengeance now, the tip of the tentacle thin and whiplike for all it was stretched out. It reached up the snapped down, cracking in the air and slamming down on the shield Steve held above his head. The impact rippled through his body, making his muscles groan and ache. 

“How’s it look Hawkeye?!” he yelled, gritting his teeth against the onslaught. He rolled to dodge the next attack and tripped up to his feet. If he threw the shield to attack, he’d have no defense when it came for him, but dodging alone wasn’t doing much. He had to count on Clint to find the centre.

“Almost there! Come on Iron Man!” There was a distant roar of repulsors and another crackle of thunder, and then Clint called, “Got it!”

“Take it!”

The tentacle that was currently attempting to wrap around the shield and tug it from Steve’s hands suddenly retreated, and he pumped his fist in silent victory, watching as it writhed and rippled its way back down the street to the centre. 

“Bullseye!” Clint sounded positively gleeful. For all of ten seconds. “Oh, shit.”

“What is it?” Steve called, turning back towards the nexus and breaking into a run. 

“I think I only succeeded in making it madder,” Clint said.

_ “Fuck,”  _ Stark bit out. “Code Green!”

“Stark, that’s not your ca-” Steve yelled, but it was too late. The Hulk burst out of the back of the quinjet with a gut-twisting roar and collided with the centre of the creature. It exploded into a sea of angry tentacles again, and, for a moment, the Hulk was completely obscured by writhing orange sludge. Steve swore silently and pushed himself to his feet. “Hawkeye, what in god’s name is happening in there?!”

“He can’t kill it, damn it -” there was the sound of Clint’s bow firing, and Steve saw several arrows penetrate the mass. Flickers of green appeared and disappeared between the clutching tentacles. Steve gripped the edge of his shield, but he was afraid to loose it, for fear he’d hit Bruce instead of the creature. Of course, even if he did, it wouldn’t do much damage. To either of them. 

He wiped sweat from the back of his neck and trotted back a ways to get eyes on Stark. He was high in the sky, near the portal, and Thor was close beside him. “How quickly can you close it?” Steve asked.

“The second you give me the word, Cap.”

“Alright. Does Hulk’s comm work?”

“Not sure,” Tony said brightly. “He’s wearing it, and it should, but we’ve never tested it post-transformation.”

“Hulk!” Steve called, loudly enough that he hoped he’d hear either way. “Don’t try and kill it, get it back through the portal.”

There was a long moment of nothing but the flailing crackling of the beast and Hulk’s angry roars, then the tentacles burst apart and revealed the Hulk in the middle raising his arms and growling. He reached out and grabbed the nearest tentacle, holding it firm in his grip. Despite the creature’s apparent ability to change form, it didn’t seem able to wriggle out of the Hulk’s super-powered grip. With another roar, he leapt up from the ground to the nearest building, scaling the wall. When he was close to the top, he gave an almighty tug and the mass of orange tentacles rose up off the ground, flailing wildly.

Steve saw it happen in slow motion. The creature stretched out wide on all sides and tried to find something, anything, to hold on to to stop the Hulk from carrying it away. One tentacle struck out and got a hold on the next building over - the one Clint was on. The tentacle smashed through a window on one side, then straight through to another, and held the entire building fast, but it wasn’t enough to stop the Hulk’s fury. He tugged, and with a terrible cracking sound, the building gave way, an entire wall exploding out in a shower of bricks and plaster dust.

“Hawkeye!” Nat screamed, vaulting down the street towards him. Steve lowered the shield he’d raised to protect himself from the cascade of broken brick tumbling to the sidewalk next to him, in time to see Clint staggering across a roof that was tilting frighteningly to the side.

“Stark!” He called, running alongside Nat to get closer. “Thor! We need air support!”

“Fuck, I can’t -” Stark bit out, and Steve knew he needed to close the portal. The air crackled with lightning as Thor swung up the hammer and started to cut across the sky, but it was too late. The roof gave way, and Clint flung himself off, not able to reach the roof beside it, but managing to grab the fire escape of the neighbouring building. He cried out in pain and slipped down, falling again, this time into Thor’s hold.

Steve’s heart pounded painfully in his chest, adrenaline flooding his system fast enough to make him unable to stand still. He was torn between Clint and the creature. Thor hit the ground and lowered Clint gently to the sidewalk, where he sat, pale and sweaty, his right wrist cluched against his chest and caged by his protective left. Nat skidded to her knees in front of him and put her hands on his face.

Steve made the decision and left Nat and Thor to care for Clint while he ran back to the portal. The Hulk had made it to the roof of the building, still holding onto the flailing creature. Steve dodged the wild tentacles as he approached. 

“Stand by, Iron Man,” he coughed out, the dust that filled the air lining his throat and robbing him of a clear breath in.

“Ready when you are, big guy.” 

“You’re too close to the portal -” Steve started, but Stark made an irritating  _ tsch  _ noise and cut him off.

“Let’s stick to what we’re good at, yeah? You do the pointless yelling, and I’ll do the math, alright big shot?”

Steve bit his tongue, feeling utterly useless as the Hulk hauled the beast up onto the roof with him. Hand-over-hand, he forced the creature into a ball, then hauled back and flung it towards the open portal. It stretched out, trying to grab a handhold somewhere, but there was nowhere left to grab - except Tony.

“T-!” Steve started, then slammed his jaw shut again. Stark had an entire array of fancy targeting and analyzing software in the armour. Steve wasn’t about to do any more "pointless yelling."

Stark dodged the tentacles easily, and, as soon as the last scrap of orange goo had disappeared through the gash, he flew over to it, did something complicated with his repulsors, and sewed the portal shut, from one end to the other. He pumped his fist with a little cheer of victory when it was done. 

Steve turned back towards Clint. He jogged down the now empty but badly damaged street, and caught Nat’s eye as he got close. “Hawkeye?” he asked. He could feel his voice shaking.

“I’m fine,” Clint said, but that made Nat roll her eyes, so Steve suspected it wasn’t that simple.

“Broken wrist, at least,” Nat reported. “And if he really thinks he’s fine, probably a concussion too.” She glared, and he snapped his jaw shut.

Repulsors whirred, and Iron Man hit the ground behind them. Steve leaned back to peer down the street and saw the Hulk working out the rest of his frustration on a section of wall that had fallen off the destroyed building. It was ruined already, so Steve let him do what he needed to do, and turned back to Clint. “Can you walk?”

“Sure.” Clint started to stand, but Stark shot out a hand and stilled him. 

“I’ll take him back to SHIELD medical,” Stark said. “Faster that way.”

The need to argue welled up inside him, but Steve recognized it for what it was - anger at himself - and tried to look at it logically. Stark could fly fast and land more easily. He could have Clint in with a doctor twenty minutes before Steve could get him in the quinjet. Though, the ride wouldn't be very comfortable. Steve glanced at Iron Man’s hard, metal arms and cringed. “That alright with you?” he asked Clint, and when he nodded, Steve stepped back and waved him in. 

Iron Man hit the sky, and Steve watched him go for a moment. He looked back down the street. It was quiet and still now, but dust filled the air. He saw movement in the centre, where the creature had been, and realized that while they’d talked, Bruce had turned back. Steve made his way over, figuring the least he could do after that horrific show of leadership, was make sure everyone was alright. He shot Nat a questioning look, and she nodded; she’d want to get back to medical as soon as possible and be there for Clint if he needed surgery.

Bruce was fine, if a bit dusty, so they made their way back to the jet. Fury had arranged for SHIELD to provide a cleanup crew, and Steve winced at the inevitable cost. 

He sat slumped on one of the bench seats in the back of the quinjet and tallied things up. His first mission as leader of the Avengers and they had destroyed an entire building and broken Hawkeye. Bruce was still unhappily curled on the far wall, headphones on and blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Stark was spitting mad at Steve, and even for all the ways Steve had screwed up today, he still wasn’t entirely sure what for. At least Nat was fine. 

He tugged his gloves off and looked down at his hands, white with plaster dust. There were dark red lines creasing his palms, at the spots where the shield had hit. They always faded quickly but there were slight callouses there that never healed. He ran his thumb over them. He was useless today, pointless; if anything, he made things  _ worse.  _ He should have removed Clint from the roof the second his arrows proved ineffective, and if not then, then as soon as the Code Green had been called.

By Stark, he thought, the disappointment flaring into anger again. Of all the arrogant, asshole, disruptive - Steve grit his teeth and scowled at the floor. He was the leader, and whether he was doing a horrible job or not, it was up to him when a Code Green was called. Maybe if Stark hadn’t jumped the gun, he would have thought to get Clint down first.

Steve wove his fingers together and stretched them out, hearing the joints pop. No… he wouldn't have. It never even crossed his mind. Even after Clint’s fall against the Chitauri, he still hadn't thought about how to get the man safely  _ down.  _ He’d just popped him up on a building and left him to fend for himself. What kind of damn lead-

Movement cut him off, and he looked up to see Nat crossing to join Bruce on the other side. They talked quietly for a moment, and Steve tried not to eavesdrop, though the effort in the small space was enough to distract him from his own thoughts. A moment later, Nat joined him.

“You alright?” she asked.

Steve shrugged. “That was a mess.”

“It was,” Nat agreed. “We’ll do better next time.”

Steve bit his tongue at the urge to bite back  _ there shouldn’t be a next time.  _ He shouldn’t even be on this team, let alone leading it. Hot acid built in his stomach and threatened his throat. He took several steadying breaths and out of the corner of his eye, he caught Nat giving him a curious look . 

They dropped Nat off at SHIELD and Steve, Bruce, and Thor took the jet the rest of the way back to the tower. No one spoke. Bruce needed quiet contemplation after a Code Green, or so he claimed, and Thor wasn’t generally inclined to talk much unless someone pulled him into conversation and then he talked quite a bit. Mostly about Asgard and Jane. It was sweet really, how in love he was, but even as Steve tried to be happy for him about that, it soured. Whenever he tried to think kindly on Thor’s happy relationship, it reminded him of the one he’d lost. 

He poked idly at the controls of the cockpit, again pointlessly, since the damn thing flew itself.

Back at the tower, he didn’t bother mentioning a debrief, he just charged off the jet and up to his rooms, leaving Bruce and Thor to do whatever they wanted with themselves. He shed his uniform in a haphazard pile on his living room floor and stepped straight into the shower. He turned the water up as hot as it would go and enjoyed the burn.

They’d fucked up. Royally. This had been a soft pitch, really; the creature was barely aggressive, they could have taken the time to back off and formulate a plan, but instead each member of the team had focused on their own thing, solving the problem their own way and ignoring the others.

And that was what his training had been all about, hadn’t it? Individuals, personal skills and powers. Now he needed a way to intertwine them so they were strong as a team. 

Clean, he switched the water off and pulled on soft sweatpants that had "SHIELD" stamped on the thigh and a t-shirt Nat had given him with a logo on it that he didn't recognize but made her laugh every time she saw him in it. He sat on his bed, one leg folded under him and flipped through the notifications on his StarkPad.

_ Fractured scaphoid.  _ Nat reported in a text.  _ Surgery, but only a few weeks recovery. SHIELD has a pretty good approach to broken bones. He’ll be back up and kicking in three weeks. _

Steve stared at the words for a long time, his heart racing, when the tablet pinged with another text, startling him out of his melancholy musing.

_ Don’t beat yourself up about it. It wasn’t your fault. _

His fingers hovered over the keypad, fighting the urge to type back,  _ yes it was.  _ But Nat would only take that as an invitation to try and convince him otherwise, and he knew it was his fault. She was only trying to comfort him, protect his feelings. 

_ I’m glad he’ll be okay,  _ he settled for instead.

He watched in his perfect memory as Clint fell helplessly from the building, over and over. If that railing hadn’t been there, if the building hadn’t had a fire escape… He needed to put backup protocols in place to keep everyone safe. First and foremost, they needed to make sure that none of them, Clint especially, but none of them, fell again without someone there to catch them.

He had three weeks to make a plan, and when Clint came back, they were going to fix this.


	4. Chapter 4

They mostly stuck to their own forms of training until Clint was fighting fit again, and Steve spent every day praying Fury wouldn’t send them a mission. When Clint first showed up in the gym since his injury, to Steve’s surprise, it was Stark walking with him, laughing lightly and poking him with an elbow.

Clint insisted that he was better and shot off three arrows in rapid succession - each one a bullseye - to prove it.

“Okay.” Steve gathered them all together. “We all know what went wrong on the last mission, and I think I have a way to help stop that kind of thing from happening again. If we have people in the air, and we inevitably do, we need a code to call for air support. Since Iron Man can usually get there faster, Stark you’ll be first refusal. Anyone can call the code, Stark confirms or refuses, if he can’t get there in time, Thor is next up.”

“Does ‘ahh I’m falling’ count as a code?” Clint asked with a smirk.

Steve rolled his eyes. “It’s a bit long.”

“How about Icarus?” Thor offered. "I've been reading your Midgardian mythology, and that story struck me as particularly appropriate."

“Sure,” Steve replied. “Though let's hope ours have a happier ending… So someone calls Code Icarus, Iron Man says yes or no, Thor’s on backup.”

They took a moment to think it over then Nat asked, “What if neither of them can get there?”

“I think we need to make sure we’re always in a position to be there for each other. I’ve been going back over the Chitauri battle and the hardest parts were the parts when we were split up. We have the benefit of time and training now. We need to come together as a team.”

There was murmured assent, or at least no one wanted to be the person to argue against team cohesiveness, so Steve pushed them into drills.

They started out together, split apart to fight Tony’s army of training robots, shifting into the formation that already worked for them. But this time, JARVIS called out the distances between them, the danger their teammates were in, and after every round they reviewed the ways they could have helped each other more. 

They tested the code, a lot, with Clint flinging himself from high places, and Tony diving in to catch him. Clint liked it a bit too much, whooping and cheering every time Tony spun him through the air before setting him on the ground. Steve growled at them to focus, his stomach churning at the sight of Tony flinging Clint haphazardly through the air. 

Training went well, though, for all that Steve worried they still weren’t taking it seriously enough. Nat worked with Tony as well. Bruce trained with them too, even shifting into the Hulk once in a while when he felt safe to do so. If he didn’t, he perched on the bench in the corner and made notes that he shared with them afterwards. 

Steve realized, after a week of their new training regime, that he hadn’t tested the code himself with Stark. It made him feel uncomfortable in a way he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but every time he had the chance to step up and say, “Me next,” he found himself studiously busy with Bruce’s notes, or setting up a new attack structure for the training bots with JARVIS. No one mentioned it, though Stark shot him a knowing look a few times.

Steve wasn’t bothered, he knew the code, it wasn’t like he was going to forget it, so there really wasn’t any need to practice. Besides, Clint and Nat were the most breakable of the team, having no superpowers or special armours to protect them in a fall. Steve had the shield and supersoldier healing abilities. They needed to protect their weakest links.

Not that he would ever let Nat or Clint hear him call them weak.

Two weeks after Clint returned to training, they faced their first challenge since the sentient sludge. Fury sent a mission briefing over on the emergency line, and Steve triggered JARVIS’ alarm. Avengers poured into the quinjet, and Steve gave a briefing on the go, while Clint flew them across the city. Stark and Thor were in the jet with them this time, listening to the plan, and Steve was grateful that Stark hadn’t fought him on it. He was still loathe to give the man an order, even if it was his right as team leader to do so, since Stark seemed to go out of his way to disobey or at least mouth off.

This time however, everyone seemed to be taking it very seriously. Stark’s mouth was set into a grim line as he watched Steve run them down the situation. Steve wondered if it was the lack of Hulk backup that had Stark a bit green around the gills. Bruce was at a conference in DC, and though he’d offered to come up, Steve refused. Hopefully this would be over before he’d have been able to get back anyway.

An unmarked plane had flown low over Rochester's downtown and released a cascade of mechanical balls, about 10 inches in diameter. They’d flooded the street, moving on their own, eventually propelling themselves a few feet off the ground. Curious, people had approached them, only to find that they exploded when they were touched. The army had cleared the area, but asked SHIELD for backup, and Fury had decided this was an Avengers-worthy incident.

The jet was quiet as they swooped low over the street. A few high-rise buildings flanked an empty street, clearly usually bustling with activity. But the shops were closed, windows dark, and police caution tape surrounded the entire area. It was eerie. The metal balls weren’t moving, simply hovering a few feet off the ground, and each one gave off a strange blue glow. 

Steve had Clint set the jet down several yards away from the closest ball and led the team in as a group. “Okay,” he said, trying to muster that tone of voice that made new recruits in the army snap a salute back during the war. “Don’t forget what we practiced in the face of an actual threat. We’re a team. Let’s work together.”

“One, two, three, break!” Stark sung, in a cheerleader's overly-chipper tone. Steve shot him a look, but he didn’t see it, already firing up his repulsors to shoot into the air.

Thor took Clint to a perch, which Steve marked on his mental map, and he and Natasha moved in for first contact.

“They explode when touched?” Nat asked.

“That’s what we were told.”

“But they hit the ground and didn’t explode when they arrived.”

“Maybe they’re sentient,” Steve offered.

“Maybe it was time triggered,” Stark added from the air. 

Steve took another step and three of the balls shot into action, flinging themselves at him. “Shit!” He held up the shield and they smashed into it, exploding the second they made contact. The impact smacked him down to the concrete, and he rolled onto his side then back up. “Engage!” The Avengers burst into a flurry of movement.

There were only so many of the bombs, and with their suicidal approach to attacking, Steve figured all the Avengers had to do was refrain from being blown up long enough for the collection to take themselves out. He moved back and fired the shield into them instead, bouncing along them like billiard balls, leaving a line of small explosions in its wake. 

Tony flew straight through the asteroid belt of bombs, smacking them up into the air with his repulsors, Nat simply shot them, and Clint sent down a volley of arrows from his perch. Thor opted for melee instead of risking electrocuting them all, which meant he was swinging his hammer hard enough that the bombs he hit were a safe distance from him before they blew.

Steve kept waiting for something to go wrong. But it didn’t. They worked their way through the onslaught, and, eventually, he could see they were making a dent in the small army. 

Some of the balls found Clint’s perch, and he called Code Icarus without hesitation. Like a perfectly choreographed ballet, he leaped off the roof, and Iron Man swooped in and caught him easily, setting him down the next building over before diving in to attack again.

“Iron Man, any info on these things?” Nat called.

Tony made a vague grunting noise, and Steve spun around to try and get eyes on him, but he couldn’t. “Not much…” There was something off in his voice. “No better way to take them out, anyway.”

“Iron Man - location?” Steve called, ricocheting his shield through another crowd of the things and covering his eyes with his arm when they showered the street in debris. He caught the shield again, and Stark still hadn’t answered. “Iron Man?”

“One minute!”

Steve frowned, and jogged down the sidewalk, trying to get eyes on him again, but without luck. Another kamikaze robot ball flung itself at Steve, and he was caught up in battle again. When Thor downed the last one with a mighty swing of his hammer, Steve leaned one hand on his knee and breathed heavily. Nat patted him on the back. “Feeling your age?” she asked with a smirk.

He shoved her off, laughing, and watched as Thor shot up to fetch Clint from his perch. Stark was still nowhere - then he appeared, flying down the street from the opposite end Steve expected him, coming down in the direction they’d arrived, the quinjet behind him. 

“Where were you?” Clint asked him when they all convened in the middle of the street.

“Ah, one was wandering so I had to hunt it down. Still not sure where it was heading.”

“You got it though?”

“Yup. Did a scan on my way down. We got them all. Go team.”

He and Clint high fived and they turned as one to walk back to the quinjet. 

“I don't like it,” Steve said under his breath. “What did they want?”

“Property damage?” Clint offered.

“A distraction?” Thor suggested, more darkly.

They fell silent.

Steve spent the trip back to the tower combing through police reports, news, and SHIELD updates searching for any reason why someone would have wanted them upstate this afternoon. He half expected the tower to be under siege when they returned, but everything was quietly waiting for them.

"We kicked ass today," Clint said, as the unscathed tower came into view. "We should celebrate."

"Indeed!" Thor clapped him on the back. "One should always honour a victory with revels. On Asgard, every returning army was greeted with a feast."

"Well, I can greet us with pizza and beer. Feasty enough for you?" Stark clapped his hands together and grinned at them.

"Sounds like a plan," Natasha said.

Clint set the jet down on the landing pad, and they all started off towards the tower doors. Stark bumped into Steve on the way out of the jet, and Steve noticed he was carrying his go-bag. “You should leave that here,” Steve said. “Since you can’t take it with you when you fly on your own.”

Stark shot him an unamused look. “Have some things I want to add,” he bit out, then stalked away, jogging slightly to catch up with the others.

Steve sighed to himself. He just couldn’t seem to say the right thing to that man. He wished talking to this Stark was as easy as talking to his father had been. Sure, Howard pissed him off constantly, but at least Steve usually knew where he stood with him. Tony was an endless source of confusion and frustration. One minute everything seemed to be fine, and the next Steve was shit on his shoe.

Apparently, a few drinks set Steve back to fine, because once their little celebration got underway, Stark was in a much better mood. Steve walked into the common space - the last one to arrive - showered and changed, and Stark landed a friendly hand on his shoulder. Steve tried not to flash back to the helicarrier.

“We have to get Cap to try it!” he said, too loudly. Steve narrowed his eyes at Stark, trying to figure out what he was talking about. But he gave Steve a little shove, and Nat tucked something into his hand and lined him up in front of the TV. Oh, a video game.

Apparently, this one involved waving the controller at the screen in an imitation of bowling, which Steve had only ever done for real once. Steve flicked the controller and watched while his ball rolled into the gutter.

The team broke out in laughter. “Finally, something Cap’s not good at,” Clint said around his mirth.

Steve sighed, but joined in the laughter, eventually, when he failed to improve at the game. They took turns - Nat and Clint solidly trouncing everyone else until it was just a battle between the two of them. After he’d sent his balls into the gutter, Steve turned around to find a seat. Bruce had arrived back at the tower just in time for the party, and he was occupying Steve’s normal chair. Steve could hear Stark telling him about the battle he had missed in between their turns. Steve sat down next to Thor, who was also solidly at the bottom of the scoreboard.

“Don’t have bowling back on Asgard?”

Thor peered at the screen. “Well, we have something similar. But we use axes instead of balls, and we play it outside, of course, instead of on TV. It’s also not so much knocking over pins as…” Thor made a confusing but fairly startling gesture with his hands.

“Oh.”

Thor turned to blink at him. “Yeah, it’s really not much like bowling at all, I guess.” He shrugged. “Still fun, though.”

“Well, sure.”

Steve struggled to find a topic they could connect on. “Do you like it here on Earth? Everything must be pretty different.” 

Thor’s smile softened. “Of course, I’d be happy here, even if it were a barren wasteland of swamp gas and poison, as long as my lovely Jane were here. Though of course, if it were, we probably wouldn't stay…” He had a dreamy, far-away look that suggested he was thinking of a planet in particular to cart Jane off too, and Steve couldn’t help smiling.

Steve realized he didn’t know how Thor and Jane had met. “Was it love at first sight for you two?”

“Oh no." Thor grinned. "She ran me over with her car and her intern tazed me. She thought I was mad. I suppose I was, back then. Midgard certainly has humbled me. I’m grateful for it.”

Steve blinked at him for a moment, then checked the label on Thor's beer bottle, but it was just regular Earth alcohol which would surely have the same effect on Thor that it had on Steve - that is to say, not much.

“I’m glad you two worked it out then,” Steve offered, and Thor beamed.

It was Steve’s turn again, so he waved the controller around stupidly for a while then went into the kitchen to open a new bag of chips, more to give his hands something to do than anything else. Natasha sidled up to him. 

“Relax,” she said with a soft smile.

“I’m fine.” He shot her a look and she chuckled.

“You suck at Wii bowling.” 

Steve snorted. “I probably suck at real bowling. Also, fair warning, don’t ever let Thor take you bowling on Asgard.”

“Duly noted.” She stuck her hand in the bag of chips he’d just opened and they leaned against the counter and watched Stark and Bruce argue over the Wii controller. 

“Do you think today was too easy?” Steve asked her.

“Still thinking about that?”

“It’s just weird. They didn’t seem to have a goal besides being dangerous. There didn’t appear to be a reason for a distraction, which means it probably wasn’t one. There wasn’t much damage done, and none of us got hurt…”

Nat shrugged. “Maybe it was a really shitty attempt to hurt one of us.”

“Maybe.”

Bruce changed the game to one that seemed to involve four people in front of the screen arguing loudly and elbowing each other violently. Steve dug back into the chips. He could feel Nat’s eyes on the side of his face. 

She reached out and patted his arm and he startled around to look at her in confusion. “What?”

“You’re doing a good job, Steve. No one tells you that. This is an almost impossible task you’ve been saddled with and you’re handling it really well.”

Steve’s mouth fell open but when no words came out, he snapped it shut again. He took a long pull from his beer. “Thanks.”

Stark managed to knock Clint backwards onto the couch and a cheer went up from the group. Nat tipped his beer towards them. “You should play.”

Steve grit his teeth. “I know.”

She elbowed him. “Not as some moral obligation to team-building, but because it’s actually fun, if you let yourself have it.”

She grabbed the chips and headed back for the couch. Steve took a breath and followed her. When the round ended, he found himself holding his hand out for one of the controllers, and in the end, she was right. It was fun.

Deep into the night, the party finally started winding down. Steve found that even though he hadn’t expected to, he’d had a good time. The team filed out one at a time and Natasha, tipsier than Steve had ever seen her before, smiled at him and pressed a kiss to his cheek before she walked out. Steve ducked his chin and smiled into the rest of his soda. He really loved Natasha; if she weren’t here he probably wouldn’t have come back from his road trip. 

Steve sat up for a while, watching the TV on silent, but not feeling the pull towards his bed that had drawn the others out of the room. They were surely all sleeping, especially considering how much they’d had to drink between them. But Steve was unaffected by the alcohol, and all the carbs they’d consumed made him feel jittery and full of energy - at least for now - so sleep wouldn’t be coming any time soon for him. 

“Is everyone in bed, JARVIS?” he asked the ceiling.

“Everyone except for Mr. Stark, who is in his workshop,” JARVIS replied.

Steve sat up and frowned. “Stark is still up? Jesus, he didn’t sleep at all last night. How is he still on his feet?”

JARVIS apparently saw that question as rhetorical, because he didn’t reply. Steve hovered on the edge of the couch uncertainly for a while. If he went down and told Stark to go to bed, he knew exactly how badly that would go. Stark wasn’t much for listening even when Steve had authority to give him orders. Steve had no right and no place to boss Stark around on things like his sleep schedule.

Still… Stark wasn’t much good to the team exhausted, and as far as Steve could tell he’d slept a total of ten hours all week, and that included the time Steve had come down to the gym for training and found Stark passed out on the bench, drooling.

Steve stood and walked towards the door then stopped and did a turn around the kitchen island. He couldn’t just go down and check up on him without pissing Stark off. He needed an excuse. There was only one thing they ever actually talked about: Avengers business. Beyond that, all they had in common was… not much.

Steve hesitated by an unopened bag of chips, wondering if he should come with a food offering. Stark would probably see right through that, though. And they’d all just eaten so much pizza and snacks that it was unlikely he’d be hungry. Steve certainly wasn’t.

So that left business.

Steve sighed and turned back towards the door. Maybe he’d have a brilliant idea on the stairs. He took them slowly, but nothing came to him, and by the time he was standing outside Tony’s workshop door, he was feeling legitimately nervous. He wasn’t sure why Tony had that effect on him, except maybe that he seemed to be the last hold out on accepting Steve as the leader of the team. Even Thor, who still had an air of godly authority, easily gave to Steve command, his military experience recognizing that it was healthy for a team to have a clear leader.

Steve knocked. The door swung open, but JARVIS must have opened it because Tony was bent over his worktop, working on something, nodding along to his music. “Ahem,” Steve cleared his throat, and Tony startled around. He gestured with one finger and the music quieted, then he turned back to his workbench and fussed with something, closing a black plastic case before turning back to Steve.

“You’re up late, Cap,” he said. Steve took a few steps closer, assuming that was the friendliest welcome he was going to get. He flicked his eyes over to the work table to see what Tony was working on, hoping it was something that he could strike up conversation over, but all he saw was the closed black case and a mess of tools - no project. When he looked back up at Tony, he frowned. There were smudges as black as charcoal under Tony’s eyes and he had a pinched, held-together-with-duct-tape look about him that was distinctly worrisome.

“Can’t sleep until I burn through the pizza,” Steve said with a shrug. “What’s your excuse?”

Tony’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, then he relaxed again. “Work.” He shrugged. “No rest for the wicked, genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.”

“Oh yeah? What are you working on?” Steve tried to keep his tone light and interested, but Tony reared up as if he’d been accusatory instead.

“SI stuff. Gotta keep some level of division, you know. Protect my IP.” His hand twitched towards the case, but didn’t touch it.

“Oh right.” Steve didn’t understand what he meant by that, but it was a clear dismissal. He resisted the urge to sigh. “I - training’s going well…” Steve winced.

“It is.” Tony eyed him, properly suspicious now, and Steve couldn’t blame him, he was acting so weird, and he couldn't even explain it to himself. What did he care if Stark talked to him? It was like Steve had almost a full line of Bingo with the Avengers, but, instead of a free square, Tony was the damn one in the middle, blocking everything.

Steve deflated and tried for honesty. “I was just bored. Sorry.”

“Oh.” Tony still didn’t look very understanding. “Well, I’m afraid shows are only Tuesday and Thursday afternoons or by special appointment.” He grinned almost cruelly and spread his hands. “This monkey can’t dance for you.”

“I wasn’t - That’s not what I meant. I just - JARVIS said you were up, and I thought maybe… Look, Stark, I just -”

_ “Tony,”  _ he corrected sharply, suddenly all angles and sharp edges.

Steve sighed and narrowed his eyes at the other man, frustrated that he couldn’t seem to keep his frustration under check which only made the feedback loop worse. “It doesn’t bother you when other people call you Stark.”

A flood of several emotions flickered across Tony’s face, then settled on irritated. He brushed a hand back through his hair and rolled out his shoulders then turned to face Steve with a new kind of determination. “I didn’t have the most stellar relationship with my father. I don’t know how much is in my SHIELD file - I’m pretty sure Nat had some choice words to share on the subject.” He chuckled without humour. “But, yeah. He wasn’t my biggest fan.” His sharp eyes met Steve’s so fiercely that he took a half step backwards. “You knew him.”

“I did… but just because you have the same name doesn’t -”

“I don’t need to be reminded about the way my father talked about you every time you open your damn mouth,  _ Steve.”  _ A shudder of unpleasant emotion rippled through Tony’s frame.

“I -” Steve stared, then felt heat flush up to his cheeks. Shit… he really had been calling Tony ‘Stark’ while calling everyone else by their first names. Maybe the fault for this conflict wasn't entirely on Star-  _ Tony’s  _ head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Tony waved a hand dismissively, then turned back to his work table. He clearly wanted to work, but he didn’t want to open the case again while Steve was there, so Steve swallowed back all the warring emotions that were crawling up his throat and headed back towards the door.

“Have a good night, Tony.”

Tony said nothing.


	5. Chapter 5

Steve had his headphones on and his eyes closed when the priority alert went off on his phone. The soft music automatically cut out, filtering the blaring alarm through them instead. Steve shoved them off his head, startling to his feet, heart pounding. It took him a moment to register that it wasn't an emergency. He'd set the alarm to go off if Hill sent a mission through so they could respond as quickly as possible.

"Get the team together," he told JARVIS, reaching for his phone. He opened the briefing, hit print, and pulled his shoes on while the printer spewed it out. He read over it in the elevator, frown deepening with each page. 

Steve walked into the common room and found everyone gathered already. He waved the packet he held. “We have a mission.”

“One step ahead of you, Cap.” Tony gestured to the TV screen where the briefing documents were already being projected. The team was collected on the couches and chairs around it.

Steve’s jaw clenched, and he bit back harsh words. This was  _ his  _ briefing to run. He shoved to the front next to the TV and glared at Tony until he sat down. "SHIELD caught wind of HYDRA action in Trenton. It seems we found the source of those bombs we faced off with last week. There's a building masquerading as a medical equipment manufacturer but they're actually churning out these things." Steve waved towards the screen where the image of the glowing blue ball hung. 

"We don't know what kind of changes might have been made since the last time we faced them," Tony said, and Bruce nodded along.

"We also don't know if there are going to be any civilians in the building, so our goal is to go in as quietly as we can, get everyone rounded up and outside to be processed by SHIELD. Ideally, this is a straightforward operation. As far as we can tell, they don't know we're coming for them. So if we move quickly, we should have the upper hand."

The others nodded, so, with nothing else to say, Steve shooed them towards the door. They met again, ten minutes later, at the quinjet. Despite protests, Steve insisted that Tony, and Thor, fly over in the jet with them so they could all arrive under the secrecy of its stealth shield. "You invented it, Tony, I'd think you'd enjoy the experience of using it."

"Was fun the first time, Cap. Now I prefer being under my own power."

"We all arrive as one." Steve put his foot down, and Tony caved. Steve couldn't see his face inside the helmet, but he had a feeling it wasn't a complimentary expression being tossed his way. 

The building was a nondescript office building on a nondescript block of office buildings. Steve checked the address four times as they set down in a private parking lot nearby. He couldn't think of anything worse than charging the wrong building and not only clueing HYDRA into their mission, but also scaring the shit out of some innocent office workers. 

It was the right one, though, so Steve turned it over to Nat, who had the blueprints for the block up on a screen. 

"We're going in through underground hydro access," she said. "There's a door here, and a passage that leads into the basement. We'll take the stairs up. Heat signatures say everyone is grouped on the eighth and ninth floors so we'll split up into two teams, bring everyone from the eighth up to the ninth, then, all together, lead them out."

"SHIELD will do any clean up," Steve continued, "so all we have to do is get the HYDRA scientists out."

"Got it, Cap." Tony clapped him on the shoulder. Steve hadn't seen him since their… spat the other night, but Tony seemed to be shoving it under the rug. And if he was ready to move on from it, so was Steve.

Bruce stayed behind to man the comms, while Clint, Nat, and Steve made their way into the building. Thor and Tony waited below, tucked unobtrusively into an alley until they were called.

The stairwell was calm and quiet. Steve went first, shield out in front of him, and Nat followed behind, gun at the ready. When they reached the eighth floor, Clint waited outside the door, bow drawn, back pressed against the wall.

Steve and Nat kept creeping up to the next floor. They took a collective breath, then Steve signalled Clint, one floor below them, through the comm before flinging the door open. Tony crashed through the picture window only a few seconds after Steve and Nat plowed through the doorway, weapons drawn, yelling at the occupants to put their hands up.

There was a scramble of screaming and shoving before they managed to get everyone grouped together in the middle of the room, empty hands held high. Most of them looked terrified, which Steve was relieved to see. This was supposed to be a science lab - manufacturing and development - not soldiers, not fighters. He had hoped they would give up easily, and it seemed they would.

Nat disappeared back through the door, and a few minutes later she arrived with Thor, Clint, and the rest of the HYDRA team.

With Thor and the superspies keeping the group contained, Steve and Tony started rooting through the projects lying around the room. Tony disappeared into a closet and came back with a duffle bag. He tossed it on the ground and the zipper fell open revealing a pile of the bombs. 

"Careful!" Steve couldn't help chastising as they hit the ground with a dull thud.

Tony snapped the faceplate up and rolled his eyes. "They're not armed, Cap. They won't go off until they are."

"Still…" Steve grumbled. "You shouldn't throw weapons around."

Tony gave him a withering look then snapped his eyes back to the crowd. There was some shifting and rumbling from the men and women they had rounded up. Tony flicked the faceplate back down. “Stand down,” he said firmly, the modulators on the suit making his voice sound even harsher. 

“Glasses in the back,” Nat murmured, and Steve’s eyes cut to the man with heavy-rimmed glasses standing at the back of the crowd. He kept flicking his eyes to the exit. Steve jerked towards him, prepping a scowl, when the man grabbed one of the duffle bags and bolted for the door. 

Steve took off without a second thought, rocketing after him. The man had the benefit of knowing the building well, and he tore up the stairs, shockingly fast. Steve came through the door too hard and had to adjust his trajectory before he could start winding up the stairs after the man.

The others were yelling in his comm, but they were all talking at once and it was too confused for Steve to make it out. He ignored them, grit his teeth, and pressed on. Near the top of the staircase, the man pushed through a door, and Steve grabbed the railing and twisted to follow after, slamming through the door at full speed. 

The floor was dark and quiet, rows of desks and computers filling the vast space, and Steve slowed to a stop, peering around. It was eerily still, the pounding of his heart in his chest louder than anything else in the room.They were shaded by the taller building across the street, and Steve crept down the long aisle between desks, headed towards the light from the windows. 

“You might as well give yourself up,” he said, loud, clear, as commanding as he could manage. 

A clang rang out, and Steve spun around, raising his shield. The man had appeared behind him, and was standing, wide-stanced, between the aisles of desks, ten feet away. The bag was at his feet, but it was nothing more than a puddle of fabric, empty. In his hand he held one of the bombs. Steve's eyes flicked between the weapon and the man's face. 

"What are you going to do with that?" He kept his voice carefully level. In his comm he could hear the chatter from the rest of the team, and now that he wasn't running anymore, he could parse it out into sentences. Thor had flown back towards the jet to call in backup and explain their position. Tony, Clint, and Nat were marching the rest of the HYDRA agents down the stairs and out of the building. 

"What do you think?" The man hissed. 

"Nothing you have to do. Put it down and step back." Steve adjusted his hold on the shield. "Don't try me, son."

The man tensed, and Steve flinched towards him again, then stilled. "I know how this ends," the man said, low and calm, too calm. His words echoed easily across the empty room. "I'm not going to jail. I'm not going into SHIELD to be experimented on, a guinea pig for their bizarre tests, like you."

"You broke the law. The only place you're going is jail. Simple as that."

The man growled. "You think you're the keepers of the law?" He laughed, ugly and grating. "You don't even know what your own team is getting up to. You're so sure you're the good guys. Oh, Captain, that team of yours has some very interesting skeletons in their closets."

Steve's tried and failed to make it look like he didn't care what the man was saying. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm just suggesting that if you're looking to eradicate the brilliant work we're doing here, you might want to start with a cleanse from within."

"Stop stalling," Steve bit out. "You're coming with me." He took half a step closer. He felt a muscle twitch in his jaw. Nat, Tony, and Clint cleared the third floor. Almost there.

"You're not taking me alive, you're not taking me at all. Because I'm taking you with me."

Steve jerked forward again, flying across the room, but it wasn't fast enough. The man twisted his hands and the ball lit up with bright blue light. "Hail HYDRA," he growled.

Steve had the space between super-soldier heartbeats to make a decision. He turned his feet towards the window and ran, as fast as he could. It took seven strides to hit glass, seven strides during which he could have called out Code Icarus, but he didn’t. Tony and Nat had just cleared the lowest level with their prisoners. Even as he ran, the thought of feeling cold metal wrap around him, tug him out of the air, and drag him across the sky made Steve’s breath evaporate out of his lungs. He said nothing.

He didn’t know how high up he was until the glass shattered around the edges of the shield and he could see the distance to the ground. Too far. And there was nothing to break his fall. Steve curled up as small as he could, bracing his shoulder against the shield, preparing to roll. But he had no time to adjust his course. He heard screaming in his comm and the roaring of repulsors, but no one touched him, and he tumbled towards the ground. 

Pain ripped along his side, and then he was falling again. Then, with teeth-shattering impact, he hit the ground. Every muscle and bone screamed in agony. He ripped his eyes open and looked up to see black smoke pouring out of the upper levels of the building. 

He couldn’t make anything move, and for a brief moment, he worried he was paralyzed, but then pain rippled through him again, and his next breath burned all the way down. His fingers and toes twitched on command, but he instantly regretted asking them to. He mumbled out a curse and tried to move, but he couldn’t do more than roll onto his side a little, still desperately trying to get in enough oxygen when his ribs were screaming at him.

The serum started healing him immediately but there it was a lot it was up against, and Steve pressed the side of his face to the cool concrete, squeezed his eyes shut and breathed. A hand landed on his shoulder.

"Cap?" Clint.

Steve gasped out a sound that was almost a word - all he could manage right now - and Natasha's black-leather covered knees appeared in his vision. Her fingers tucked under his collar, and he tipped his head as far as he could to let her take his pulse. She slipped the fingers from her other hand between his thumb and forefinger then leaned in close. "Squeeze my hand if you can hear me."

He squeezed.

"Squeeze once if you just need a moment to recover, twice if you need me to call the medics over here right now."

Steve flushed through with relief that Nat understood. He would need medical help, but it wasn't urgent, not like it would be with someone who didn't have the super soldier serum coursing through their veins. He just needed to find his breath again, then he'd be able to stand. He squeezed once.

Her hands stayed where they were, one under his collar, thumb lightly touching the dip of his throat to count his breathing, finger tips taking his pulse, the other tucked in his.

Every time he breathed in, Steve got a little bit more air, until he was able to lean onto his shoulder and rock up to sitting. The world shifted and spun - concussion. It would heal soon enough, but for now he felt like puking. 

He blinked the fuzziness out of his eyes and found Nat glaring at him. "You idiot," she said fondly.

Clint looked over his shoulder then shot Nat a nod and stood, footsteps carrying him away.

"Did you get everyone out?" Steve croaked.

"Yes. They're all in SHIELD custody. What were you thinking, Steve? You could have called a code. Tony or Thor could have got you out of there safely. You hit a lamp post on the way down, for fucks sake."

"Oh, is that what that was?" It hurt to talk, but he didn't know how else to show Nat he was fine.

"Yes. You broke it in half." She rolled her eyes but shifted closer. "You hit the ground like a sack of potatoes."

"Not my most graceful fall," he admitted through clenched teeth. Now that the general all over shock and pain had faded, he could feel it coalescing into pointed pinpricks of intense pain. His right hand, his right hip, a ripple up his back, and the ever-tightening band around his lungs. His head.

"Can you stand?"

In answer, Steve used his left hand - still in reasonably good shape - to push himself to his feet, using one of Nat's arms to steady him. "Thor was too far away," he said, answering her earlier question. 

Her grip tightened. "Tony."

"He was helping get everyone out. The guy had a bomb, Nat."

"That's bullshit, and you know it."

Steve fell silent while Nat maneuvered him onto the tailgate of a SHIELD ambulance. He sat with a wince and waited. She handed him an ice pack, and he pressed it to his head with his good hand. He held his right hand in his lap, pointedly ignoring looking at it - feeling the throbbing pain was bad enough. He looked up and felt the blood drain out of his face as Tony stalked past. Tony was still wearing the suit, but the helmet was off, and he turned to look at Steve, a general scowl turning into a pointed glare. He didn't say a word, but marched off into the crowd.

“He is so beyond pissed at you,” Nat said, following his eyeline. 

"He hates me."

"You’re hurt, so I’m going to refrain from kicking your ass for now, but I will say that if you'd died, and he could have stopped it - even if you didn’t call a code, even if you didn’t expect him to be there for you - he would never have forgiven himself. He’d carry that with him forever.”

“It’s not his job to -”

“Yes it is.” Nat cut him off. “That’s what you need to learn about Tony Stark. It’s always his job. He carries the world on his shoulders whether you asked him to or not. Your only choices are to pile more on or to offer to share the load. He won’t ever put it down.”

Steve dropped hot, prickling eyes to his lap. Which was probably a mistake, because now he could see that one of the bones in his pointer finger was visible. He cringed and squeezed his eyes shut instead.

A medic appeared a moment later and did an impressive job of suppressing her obvious desire to set off a siren and get Steve shipped off to the ER right away. He knew it looked bad, and it was going against all her training to slap a bandaid on him and send him on his way, but there wasn't much more she could do. After looking him over, she did insist that he go back to SHIELD medical to have the broken bones reset. They'd already started healing wrong.

Steve could really feel the pain now - no longer the sharp shock pain of impact, but the dull, all over throb that intensified in his hands and ribs. Every breath set off a jolt in his side, and he kept reaching for the shield or to adjust his uniform with his bad hand and wincing with pain, which made the medic wince too, in sympathy. 

The room they left him in at Medical was cold and overly sterile. It didn't have the small touches - posters and models of the digestive tract - that a family doctor's office would have. It was just an exam table, a stool, and a desk with an array of drawers with locks. 

The others had left him to go to Medical on their own, taking care of the things Steve should be taking care of instead of sitting here broken because he'd been an idiot. His mouth was dry and tasted like ash and dirt and blood, but there wasn't a sink in the room, and the thought of shuffling out into the hall and getting lost looking for a water fountain was both too embarrassing and too uncomfortable to consider. 

He sighed and wiped his good hand over his face, probably smearing more blood around. He knew, he  _ knew,  _ that he'd made the wrong decision, but even when he tried to act it out again in his head, he couldn't bring himself to call the code. Stupid.

A soft knock came on the door, and Steve looked up, expecting the doctor, but while it was  _ a  _ doctor, it wasn't the one he was expecting.

"Bruce."

"Hey, Steve, how are you?" Bruce hovered awkwardly in the doorway until Steve gestured him in. He shut the door behind himself and shifted over to stand next to the stool without sitting. 

"Fine."

Bruce raised an eyebrow at him. "Sure." He lifted a plastic bag he was carrying. "Brought you clothes and some gatorade and a snack."

Steve blinked at him for a moment before realizing he was expected to say something. "Wow. Uh, thank you. I didn't expect - thank you."

"The others would have come, but they're all giving statements and, uh, cleaning up and stuff." Bruce shuffled around the stool to set the bag on the exam table next to wear Steve sat. 

Steve opened the bag and pulled the drink out. He had to brace it between his knees to open it with only one good hand, but Bruce didn't fuss or try to help. Steve downed half of it in one go. "Thank you," he said again, inside a happy sigh. He instantly felt better as the drink lined his churning stomach and diluted the acid.

"Just waiting to be reset?" Bruce gestured towards Steve's hand.

"Yeah. They want to make sure my breathing goes back to normal. And reset the finger bones that started healing wrong."

Bruce made a sympathetic noise. "Healing  _ too  _ fast. Unexpected downsides of the serum, huh?"

Steve met his eyes carefully. "I think I got off pretty easy in that regard."

Bruce nodded with a self-deprecating chuckle. "Yeah…" He wandered around the office, clearly uncomfortable. He tugged on a few of the drawer handles but they were locked.

"You don't have to stay…" Steve said, dropping his voice low to match Bruce's soft tones.

Bruce looked up from his drawer tugging as if startled. "Hmm? No, I'm - I'm here to bring you back to the tower. Once they have you back in one piece."

"Oh. I can… um -" Steve wasn't actually sure what he could do. Bruce had brought him clothes, but he couldn't very well ride the subway back to the tower with the uniform in a bag and blood and dirt all over his face. "Right."

"I don't mind."

Steve caught his eye again, and to his surprise, he really believed it. "I appreciate it."

There was another knock, and the door opened again to reveal the doctor this time. There was an awkward dance while Bruce tried desperately - failing each time - not to be in the way while the doctor got himself settled in the tiny space. Steve expected Bruce to leave, but he stayed, wincing and paling as the doctor reset each of Steve's fingers and wrapped them in a set of splints.

Steve grit his teeth through it, figuring it was the least he deserved for being as stupid as he had been. Each pop was a snap of pain, then a flush of relief after, and by the end he was holding his breath, his whole body tensed. The doctor wrapped his pinky, then his whole hand in gauze. 

"You can take that off as soon as you get home," he said. "With your accelerated healing, your fingers should be fine in a day or two." His hands landed on Steve's sides, easing his arms out of the way. "Your ribs on the other hand… might take a little longer. And, super soldier or not, I don't want you doing anything physical while these heal, okay?" He squeezed, almost a threat, and Steve's eyes watered at the pain.

"Yes, sir," he said.

The doctor eyed him suspiciously then cut his sharp gaze over to Bruce. "You'll make sure he watches trashy TV in his pjs?"

Bruce nodded. "We all will."

"Alright." He patted Steve's shoulder. "You're all set, Cap. Ice if it hurts. I'd give you something, but I know it won't work, so try to keep your mind busy and your body still, got it?"

"Got it." 

He nodded again then swept out. Steve dug the clothes out of the bag Bruce had brought - a t-shirt and khakis. JARVIS must have let him into Steve's closet to get them. Bruce moved towards the door then paused, raising an eyebrow at Steve in question.

"Actually," Steve said, trying to keep the weariness out of his voice, "could you help me?"

"Of course." 

Steve's uniform fought them, not wanting to be worked off Steve's shoulders without forcing him to pinch his chest in painfully. Each rib throbbed at its own frequency, and they were all working their way up his head, ready to settle behind his brow. He took short, shallow breaths and left most of the tugging and zipping to Bruce. It was easier, once he was down to his boxers, to slip into the new clothes. His uniform was designed to go on easily, when Steve had full range of motion, but getting out of it was never a priority.

Steve felt like a new man, freshly dressed, even though he was still desperate for a shower. Bruce had borrowed one of Tony's cars, and once they'd checked Steve out, he led the way to the parking garage. The drive back went by in a haze of traffic noises and colours whipping past the window. After a few blocks, Steve let his eyes drift shut, forehead rested against the cool glass of the window. 

Bruce woke him up at the tower and guided him all the way up to his floor. "Need help with anything?" Bruce asked, but Steve shook his head.

"I'm just going to sleep off the worst of it. Thanks."   
  


"Alright. Just have JARVIS call if you need anything."

Steve nodded, and Bruce turned back towards the elevator then paused. "Today went well, Cap. I know you think it didn't, but all in all, for raiding a HYDRA base, it could have gone much worse. All but one of them gave themselves up."

Steve tried to take Bruce's words and internalize them, accept them as true, but he couldn't quite manage it yet. He did manage a smile, though and a "thank you," and then Bruce was gone.

The words the HYDRA agent had said wriggled back into Steve's mind and lodged there.  _ Start with a cleanse from within.  _ What did that mean? Was he suggesting there was a mole inside the Avengers? Impossible.

Deciding he couldn't sleep in his current state, Steve wobbled under a cool shower for a few minutes, watching the worst of the grime swirl down the drain, then fell into bed, naked, bruised, and covered in bandages.


	6. Chapter 6

Tony didn’t come see him while Steve healed. Nat came, but she spent most of her time giving him a run down on how training had gone that day, which only served to make Steve feel worse. They were clearly getting on fine without him. 

When he was alone, Steve used the opportunity to work through everything on his “21st-century list” that he could see on either youtube or Netflix. In some ways, his injuries were a relief, giving him a perfect excuse to do all of the nothing he never felt he had time to do. Though that came with guilt of its own. He had all this time, he should be planning strategy drills or limping down to the gym to watch training himself. He should be reviewing old training tapes and newsreel of their battles and analysing what when wrong.

Instead, when the little box popped up asking if he was still watching Netflix, Steve hit “yes” every time.

After three days, Steve could walk around without cursing Erskine for making him immune to painkillers, and after a week, he was almost entirely healed.

At a week and half, he went in to Medical to have a full review and got the stamp of approval on his x-rays. When he arrived back at the tower, the cab dropped him off and he made straight for the elevators, planning to sneak out one more day of slobbing around in his apartment before he told the others he was fighting fit again. He pushed the elevator call button, and the doors swung open immediately to reveal Tony. He was leaning against the back wall, ankles and arms crossed, dark sunglasses concealing his eyes. 

“You. Me. Gym. Tomorrow,” he said then walked out, headed for the line of Ferraris. 

Steve watched him go, dumbfounded, resisting the urge to call out, “What time?” weakly after him. He was the one who was supposed to be booking training time. He managed to hide in his apartment for the rest of the night, and when he woke, he asked JARVIS to let him know when Tony was headed for the gym. Tony didn’t leave his work until after dinner, which meant Steve had the entire day to work himself up, wondering what Tony was planning.

When JARVIS finally summoned him, Steve all but ran downstairs, finding the Iron Man suit standing empty on sentry in the corner and Tony in soft sweatpants and a ragged t-shirt in the middle of the mats.

“So what is it?” Tony said without preamble. He stretched his arm behind his head and pulled it taut. “Me or the suit?”

Steve stuttered to an awkward halt. “What do you mean?”

“Is it me you don’t trust or the suit?”

Steve struggled through the possible answers and failed to find one. But Tony quirked an eyebrow at his silence.

“Well, that answers that.”

“It’s not that,” Steve said between grit teeth, but Tony looked unconvinced. “Okay.. it’s not  _ all  _ that… I don’t like falling… very much.”

“No one would know, with the way you carry on. Flinging yourself off of buildings and what have you.” Tony crossed the gym in a few easy strides, and the Iron Man suit that had been waiting in the corner opened up to allow him to step up inside. There was a moment of whirring and clicking as the plates came together to seal him within, then the lights in the eye slits flickered to life. “How do you feel about flying?” He held out one gauntleted hand.

Steve took an uncertain step closer. “The one time I flew a plane, I crashed it into the ocean,” he said with a roll of his eyes. Tony snorted out a laugh, or at least it sounded like a laugh through the suit’s speakers, and that pulled Steve up to a surprised halt. 

“Well then, what if someone else pilots?” Tony wriggled the fingers on his hand invitingly.

Steve stepped closer again, but he could feel a deep ache in his jaw from clenching his teeth, and he was sure the smallest unexpected sound would send him running off for the elevator like a startled cat. “Tony…” he warned, but he set his hand in Tony’s.

Tony’s fingers closed around his, and he tugged him closer until the were chest to chest. He wrapped his arm around Steve’s waist. Steve could feel his cheeks heating. Even though this was not a  _ compromising  _ position - it sure felt like one. They had the layers of metal between them, and when he looked to the side, all he could see was the red and gold of Iron Man’s impersonal helmet, but the fingers on his waist curled in to grip his hip like real fingers, and Tony’s voice was so loud from being so close. He would swear he could feel the heat of the arc reactor burning a hole in his chest from where they were pressed together. It was  _ humiliating.  _ “Tony,” he said again, more petulantly this time.

The repulsors roared to life, and Steve’s whole body clenched. Tony laughed, which made Steve wish he could will himself into cool, collected relaxation, but he couldn’t force his muscles to stop freaking out when they lifted a few feet off the floor. 

When he was jumping out of high places, he rarely had time to worry about the landing, and his supersoldier reflexes took over, but when he had time to think about it, he panicked. And trusting his safety to Tony only made it harder. His fingers dug into the metal shoulder plates of the armour hard enough that it creaked angrily.

“I’m not going to drop you, Cap.” Tony sounded more amused than offended.

“Yeah? Tell my hands that,” Steve grumbled. 

Tony tipped to the side and angled his free hand expertly so they started to drift across the room. Even though it was only an easy four feet to the ground, Steve’s mind kept supplying images of Tony blasting out through the window and chucking him loose to tumble to the sidewalk below. It wasn’t fair, he knew it wasn’t fair to Tony to think that, but he couldn’t stop imagining it happening, over and over.

“What’s wrong?” Tony asked softly.

“I know you’re not going to drop me,” Steve said.

“That isn’t an answer to my question, but I appreciate your faith in me.” He moved a little faster, and Steve started breathing through his teeth. This was important, for the team, for everyone. He had to push through.

“I keep picturing you dropping me,” Steve finally admitted with a resigned sigh.

“You know what the best cure for that is?”

“I don’t think I want to know.”

“Exposure,” Tony said with laughter in his voice.

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“And it took a completely dismantled hand and three cracked ribs to get you here, so.” Tony whooped and shot off across the gym suddenly, making Steve’s breath catch in his throat. Iron Man darted around the small space with perfect control, dodging the gym equipment. He dipped low to roll through the door to the range, then picked up speed in the vast, open space. 

Steve held on with all of his super strength, wishing he could close his eyes, but unable to give up that last bit of control he had over the situation. When Tony turned towards the bank of windows, he yipped out a “No!” then bit his lip.

Tony slowed and straightened out to sink down to the floor. He released Steve. The faceplate flipped back, and he raised an unamused eyebrow at Steve. “I wasn’t going to take you outside.”

“I  _ know,  _ okay. I know that. But my brain just - won’t accept it.” Steve squeezed the back of his neck, wishing he had the cowl on to hide his flaming cheeks under.

Tony actually did look a little offended now and like he was trying to control it. “I don’t get how you can jump out of a flying helicopter, but you won’t trust me to carry you across the damn room.”

Steve shrugged hopelessly. “I don’t know either. I hate it. I know it’s bad for the team. I should lead by example.” He sat down hard on the bench along the far wall of the range and fixed his eyes on the row of pristine white and red targets that decorated the end of each lane. It was weirdly quiet being here when no one was shooting. Steve never used this space, so his only reason to be here was with the others. But with the lights dimmed and the targets still and no ringing out of gunfire or  _ thunk  _ of arrows it was almost eerie. And intimate. His voice suddenly felt too loud for the space, and he swallowed and shifted on the bench, trying to find a comfortable position.

Tony sighed again then the suit sprung open, and he stepped out onto the ground. “How old are you?” He peered at Steve who frowned at the sudden about-turn in the conversation.

“What?”

“How old are you?”

Steve smiled. “Ninety-four.”

Tony rolled his eyes and came to sit next to Steve on the bench. “Okay, fine. How about in dog years or whatever.”

“I’m twenty-eight. I’ve been ‘alive’ for twenty-eight years.”

“Shit. You’re so young. I guess I hadn’t really thought about it.”

Steve’s frown deepened, and he straightened up, feeling the spark of righteous anger flick to life in his chest. “You had to grow up a lot younger, the time I came from.”

Tony shook his head and waved a hand. “No, no. I didn't mean it like that. I mean, I forgot how young you are in the first place, because you don’t seem like it. But I feel like you seem older for the wrong reasons, you know?”

“No, I uh, don’t know.”

“Because you’ve seen more than most people have seen by twenty-eight. Had to deal with a lot of weight on your shoulders. It’s not fair.” His voice had softened, an unexpected kind of distance curled through the words and stretched them out and away from Steve. 

“I - um.” Steve twisted his hands in his lap.

“You’re used to going from zero to sixty, aren’t you? Not a lot of time to adjust to your new body, no time to train with the Howling Commandos before you’re carted across enemy lines, then no time to accept waking up seventy years in the future. During an alien invasion.”

“I guess.” A new kind of tension had settled over the room. Tony had never spoken to Steve like this before, and he wasn’t sure if it was nice or horrible. If it was kind or humiliating. “It’s part of the serum, you know, being able to adjust and analyze the -”

“Steve.” Tony turned soft brown eyes on him. “Teacher’s not here. You don’t have to pretend to be perfect. I already don’t respect you, right?” He shot Steve a smile. “So, what does it matter if you admit to having some weaknesses? Maybe this is supposed to be hard.” He landed a firm hand on Steve’s knee, squeezed briefly, then walked out of the gym, the armour trailing after him.

Steve stared at the doorway Tony had disappeared through for a long time. It was the oddest conversation he’d ever had with the man, and it left him vibrating with an uncomfortable kind of energy. He shucked his jacket and grabbed his wraps and a towel from his locker. For the first twenty minutes, he didn’t let himself think about anything except the shock of connection between his fist and the bag. He let the jolts reset his train of thought every time it drifted towards what had just happened. 

It took a while, but his shoulders shifted down from around his ears to a more conventional position, and he started leaning into the hits, maximizing power, finding his balance, and breathing through it. 

When he was sufficiently settled, Steve stepped away and scrubbed the towel over his face. He walked briskly once around the gym and then came back to the punching bag. 

He’d taken up boxing as exercise when he’d arrived in the future. In the war, they’d all wrestled and grappled with each other, but Steve’s hits and grabs had so much power behind them that they were all legitimately concerned he’d put someone in the infirmary. So he’d held back. But every skill that he was allowed to compete at, post-serum, he’d instantly outstripped the competition. 

He could run the fastest, jump the farthest, shoot the straightest - only Bucky could challenge him on that - and swim the longest. Every new thing he tried to learn, he learned instantly. Boxing was something he’d only picked up in the future, and he’d already outclassed everyone at the old gym he went to when he didn’t feel like being at the tower that day. Even stupid games like who could stand on one leg or hold their breath the longest - he was exceptional.

And here was something he was awful at. Mastering his stupid anxiety. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t overcome it. And it wasn’t just Tony, everything about this team had been an exercise in proving him wrong, proving him weak and dumb and worthless. Not being able to let Tony carry him was just the icing on a truly humiliating cake. 

He hit the bag with another furious right hook then stilled it with his left hand, his breath finally short and sharp - probably more from stress than overexertion. He should have quit a long time ago, stepped down as leader and let Tony take over, or forced Nat to take his place. Why did he keep fighting when this was so futile? So  _ pointless?  _ So what if he figured it out, if he finally managed to get through a training exercise without stuttering, or managed to jump off a building and trust that Tony would be there to catch him? He’d still be a shitty leader of a team that could barely stand each other.

Steve unwound the wraps from his hands slowly, watching each strip of yellowed fabric reveal more calloused, worn skin. Even the serum couldn't counteract the sheer number of times a day that the shield collided with his palm. A line of rough, shiny blisters constantly marred both palms, even when he wore the reinforced gloves Tony had made him. He picked at the hard, cracked skin. He  _ was  _ young. Tony wasn’t wrong. Most guys his age were thinking about getting married, having kids, if their career was going in the right direction. And he was worrying about how he’d keep from dying if an actual alien flung him off a skyscraper.

He sighed and tossed the dirty wraps into the laundry basket by the floor. 

Upstairs, stripped down to his boxers then tucked up into an oversized hoodie, he settled in front of his computer. He let the internet distract him for a while, watching a few music videos for bands Clint had recommended and scrolling through some of the more interesting pages on Reddit before he forced himself to flip to his email.

He didn’t work for Fury - he didn’t really work for anyone - but what else was he supposed to do?

_ Director Fury, _ he began.

And then he stopped. Everything he could think to say sounded petty, petulant and childish.  _ I can’t do this anymore. I’m not strong enough to lead this team. They’d be better off without me.  _

In the end, Steve turned his computer off without saving anything and crawled into bed. It wasn’t that late, but ever since the serum, he could sleep for three hours or thirty, whichever he wanted at the time.

He didn’t sleep for thirty hours, but he stayed blackout until early the next morning. He made eggs and toast and tried to talk himself out of quitting, but he couldn’t. He was just sitting down at his computer to attempt to compose his resignation again when the door burst open, sending Steve's  _ Alert!  _ instinct into overdrive for a moment before he realized it wasn't a threat. 

Tony wafted into the apartment like he owned the place, which, actually, he did, followed by a cloud of coffee and something that smelled like it said “use in a well-ventilated space” on the can. He threw himself on the couch and picked up one of Steve’s sketchbooks. He flipped through it while Steve looked on, stunned.

“You don’t like being carried and you don’t like expecting to be caught, right? So, I was thinking, I have a solution.”

Steve flushed when he realized that his half-written email was still open on his screen. He clicked it shut quickly and turned in his chair to face Tony. Tony it seemed, hadn’t noticed, turning the sketchbook to the side to examine a piece more closely. 

“You’re very good.”

“Uh, thanks. You have a solution?”

“Yeah.” Tony tossed the sketchbook aside. “You jump off of the practice perch in the range, with a bag at the bottom. And I won’t catch you.”

“Um, okay…”

“Until I do.”

“Not sure I -”

“I won’t tell you which time I’m going to catch you. You don’t mind jumping off of things when you know you’re going to be in control of your landing, right?”

“Right...”

“So you jump, and randomly, when you’re least expecting it, I’ll zip in and catch you.”

Steve blinked at Tony. “And that’ll help, how exactly?”

“Exposure. If we do that seven hundred times, you’ll stop bracing for impact. And you’ll see that I never try to catch you and miss.”

Steve opened his mouth to protest then closed it again. It was weird, but it wasn’t actually that bad of a plan. He tipped his head to the side, rolling the idea around. His eyes flicked uninvited back to his computer screen, but he could always quit tomorrow. If this didn’t help.

He shrugged. “Sure, why not.”

“Perfect. I’ll see you in the gym in twenty.”

“Uh, Tony?” 

Tony stopped and turned, halfway to the doorway. “Yeah?”

“You won’t - uh -” Steve pinched his thumb between the thumb and forefinger of his other hand, trying to will his cheeks to keep from colouring out of sheer willpower. “You won’t tell the others about this, will you?” he finally spilled out.

Tony’s smile bloomed slowly, full of humour but with less mocking than Steve had expected. “Course not.” Tony whipped out.

Steve scrambled to get dressed and get down to the gym with enough time to warm up. By the time Tony showed up, Steve was running near manically on a treadmill, trying to burn off his excess energy. Tony flew in, armoured up, through a window that opened automatically for him. “Come on, Cap.” His filtered voice came through the speakers. As he flew by, he hooked the emergency pull string on the treadmill and tugged it free so Steve had to grab the handles and jump on the edge to stop from doing a sudden face plant into the controllers. 

He glared at Tony, who was already zipping out of the room and into the range. Steve trotted after him, pulling up the cowl he’d actually thought to bring this time. He left the shield in the corner of the room, figuring it was better to keep this as simple as possible at first. 

Tony lounged mock casually against the wall, crossing one ankle over the other and flipping up the faceplate to watch Steve walk over to one of the perch towers. He grabbed one of the big bags off the wall and dragged it over, then he stood and stared at it. “You really want me to climb up and fall on this over and over?”

Tony nodded and shot him a one-fingered salute.

“Okay,” Steve grumbled to himself. Climbing the perch tower was easy enough. It was only about fifteen feet tall, and when Steve looked down, he couldn’t imagine how Tony could move quickly enough to catch him without having to start before Steve jumped. He shot a look over to Tony, who was exactly where he’d left him, though the faceplate was down now. To make it easier, Steve turned away, facing the row of targets instead of staring at Tony, waiting for him to move.

He told himself it was just a training exercise. Learning to land well. That was all. He looked down at the puffy blue bag waiting for him, then tipped over and fell. His body tensed rock hard waiting for impact, but instead of cool metal, he hit the bag and rolled off it to stand on the floor again. His heart was pounding. He shot another look at Tony, who hadn’t moved. Then he went back to the ladder to climb again.

By the tenth fall, he was starting to get frustrated. “Aren’t you going to catch me?” he called out.

Tony shot him a thumbs up. “You’re doing great! Very athletic.”

Steve rolled his eyes and sighed, tipping off the top of the tower again and tumbling down to the bag with a huff. He was a supersoldier, it wasn’t like he was feeling it yet, but it was getting annoying, doing the same thing over and over again for no reason. If Tony was waiting for his guard to go down, it wasn’t going to work. He was always going to be tense. He scrambled back up and didn’t even pause, walking straight from the top of the ladder to the edge and off.

A rushing roar filled his ears, and all the air punched out of his lungs. He struggled for purchase with his hands and feet against the sudden change of direction but all he found was smooth metal. Tony’s arms wrapped solid and unyielding around his waist as they powered across the range. Tony took him in a long arc past the targets and back to the benches by the door. He set Steve down gently.

Steve staggered a few steps away, sucking in useless air as bands of unyielding leather tightened painfully around his ribs. There was a mechanic whir, and then all Steve could see was Tony’s worried eyes peering into his. “You okay?”

Steve waved a hand and straightened up. The bands loosened. He could breathe again. “Yeah,” he gasped. “I just. Yeah. You startled me.”

“Well, that was kind of the point,” Tony chuckled.

Steve shot him a look, then sat down hard on the bench.

Tony frowned. “It doesn't really work if you only go once.”

“I know. Give me a minute. I just got ripped out of the sky by a snarky rocket, okay?”

Tony broke into full on laughter and collapsed onto the bench next to Steve, looking surprisingly comfortable in 300 pounds of metal. “How awful was it, on a scale of one to ten?”

Steve hesitated. His heart rate was returning to normal, and in all honesty, it had been less stressful than yesterday’s flight because it had been so sudden and then over. “Six?”

“Okay, wow. You do remember that you died for like seventy years and lost everything you’ve ever known and loved, and it’s the hug-and-fly that puts you at a six? Really? Okay. I mean, you do you.”

Steve couldn’t help it, he snorted out a laugh. “You didn’t tell me what counted as a ten. I was comparing it to other, you know, battle situations.”

“Alright, well. We’re starting at a six? I can work with that.” Tony gestured towards the perch and Steve pushed himself to his feet.

This time it was only two more falls before Tony caught him again. And even though Steve now knew, somewhat, what to expect, he still had no time to brace himself before he was halfway across the room, held tight in Tony’s arms. It still knocked the breath of him, and he wound tight and yelped, scrambling frantic hands against the metal. But Tony only took one turn around the room again then placed him gently on his feet by the benches. Steve tipped forward, hands braced on his knees and took two, long, slow breaths, then walked back over to the ladder, wrapping his hands around the rungs with determination.

“Five point eight,” he called.


	7. Chapter 7

Cold metal bit into the skin of Steve’s palm, even through the leather of his gloves. His fingers clenched on the railing, his muscles screaming with the strain of stretching out as far as he could.

“Clint!”

Clint hung limply from the broken railing below him, one hand hanging uselessly at his side. He was looking at Steve, but his eyes were blank, registering nothing. If only he would just reach up, grab Steve’s hand. Steve stretched out further - a few more inches and he could touch Bucky’s hand. The train rattled, and Clint’s grip loosened.

“No! Don’t let go. Grab my hand. Please. Bucky - please.” But Clint just stared blankly at him. 

Steve tried to grab his hand, pry it off the railing, take Bucky's wrist and haul him back inside even though he was doing  _ nothing  _ to save himself. Why was he just staring?

“Why are you staring at me?” he nearly sobbed. The building around them was crumbling to dust and it was going to take the train car with it - and both of them. If only Bucky would just grab his hand. “Clint, please,” Steve begged.

It was so cold, so fucking cold.  _ Don’t let go -  _

Steve swam his way out of sleep forcefully, gulping in the soft warm air of the tower instead of harsh, biting cold. He wasn’t in his bed; instead, it was the soft leather of the common room couch under his clenching fists. He fixed his eyes to the smooth plaster of the ceiling and counted to ten, willing his racing heart to calm. But before he hit seven, there was a gentle clattering of dishware from the adjacent kitchen, followed by a soft curse.

Steve pushed himself off the couch, rubbing dry sleep from his eyes and stretching out his tense muscles. He padded into the kitchen and found Tony standing by the counter in Iron Man themed sleep pants and a worn, fitted, grey t-shirt. He was holding his phone and staring accusingly at it, as if it was the source of all life’s unhappinesses. For Tony, considering how much of his life was contained within technology, that might not be wholly inaccurate.

Steve must have made a noise because Tony’s head snapped up from the phone to look at him. He smirked. “Nice bedhead, Cap.”

“I fell asleep on the couch.” Steve ran a hand self-consciously through his hair. “What’s your excuse?”

Tony shrugged. “Couldn't sleep.” His voice was light, but Steve could hear the firm command underneath his words:  _ Don’t ask.  _ Steve didn’t. “You know how when someone makes you a new food you’ve never had before, you start to crave it all the time for a few weeks after?”

Steve blinked at him, still shaking off the ghostly grip of sleep. His fingers clenched and unclenched against his thigh, itching to reach out for a hand that wasn’t there. “Not really? I mean, I haven’t had people make me food very often so…”

Tony waved his phone in Steve’s direction. “Bruce made this amazing curry the other night and when I said, 'This is great,’ he said, ‘I’ll give you the recipe,’ and instead of giving him the patent Tony Stark Unamused Look -” Tony demonstrated, and Steve chuckled “- I said, ‘That’d be great,’ like the chump I am. I don’t know what half these things are. But I must have it now.”

“At least you have the recipe so you can try?” Steve offered.

“No, see that’s worse. Now I have no excuse. If I’d never been given it, I could go wake Bruce up now and be all, ‘How did you make that curry thing with the spinach?’ but now I have no excuse.”

“You’d really wake Bruce up in the middle of the night to make you curry?”

Tony shrugged again, but he was smiling now, and Steve was starting to get a handle on his rather bizarre sense of humour. 

“Well, good luck,” Steve said. He pulled a soda out of the fridge, even though he knew he should be heading straight up to bed, and settled at the table with the rest of the morning’s paper he hadn’t had time to finish. He was sure right to his bones that if he crawled into bed now, he’d fall off to sleep immediately - and right back into the same dream. It was inevitable. And as badly as he knew he needed to sleep - if he was going to be halfway competent tomorrow at training - he couldn't bring himself to play that scene out any more times tonight. The chill of distant but never forgotten frost curled up around his ankles, and he rubbed them together to warm them.

Tony went back to his kitchen adventures, and for a while, they hung in quiet, middle-of-the-night peace, each in their own bubble but with the edges touching each other. For the first time since Steve had met Tony, it felt easy. 

Then Tony popped them. “Do you know how to cook?”

Steve tipped one shoulder up, looking across the room to meet Tony’s pinched gaze. “Not really. I can make eggs and toast. And grilled cheese. And cereal. That’s pretty much it.”

“Cereal doesn’t count as cooking,” Tony protested.

“Sorry, it’s all I’ve got. I didn’t get much of a chance to learn.”

Tony sighed, tapping a wooden spoon against his thigh, then turned back to his recipe. Steve heard him pulling things out of the fridge and opening drawers, muttering softly to himself. They managed another five minutes of quiet.

“Do you know what cardamom is?” Tony asked.

Steve set the paper down again. “Uh, actually I do know that one.” He scraped his chair back and joined Tony in the kitchen, reaching up over his shoulder to open the spice cupboard. He had heard Nat and Bruce arguing about it earlier - something about ground or whole - and he knew there was a packet of it at the bottom of the messy basket of spices Bruce bought in bulk from an Indian grocery store down the street. “Here you go.”

Tony shook the packet of seeds. “Cool.” He was looking somewhat uncomfortable and hovering in front of his haphazard pile of ingredients without touching them.

Steve felt the deep desire to  _ fix  _ that always welled up whenever he saw someone looking uncomfortable. Even Tony. “Want help?”

Tony brightened almost imperceptibly, then schooled his expression back under control a heartbeat after. “Do you mind?”

“Haven’t got anything else to do.” Steve washed his hands with soap and water hot enough to sting away the bite of snow. “What do we need to do?”

Tony handed over his phone in a surprisingly trusting gesture, sticking his head in the fridge while Steve scrolled through the recipe Bruce had emailed over. It’d be so easy to flip back to Tony’s main inbox and spy on his email, but it hadn’t even seemed to cross Tony's mind that Steve might do that. Or maybe he had nothing to hide. Steve was shocked at how desperately he wanted to look. It felt like a peek behind the curtain of a complex puppet show - he wanted to see how their arms and legs moved so seamlessly. 

“We have enough spinach to kill a yak.” Tony tossed another package on the counter. “What is this? Popeye’s tower? Is that how you get those muscles?” Tony poked him in the bicep, and Steve snorted.

“It says heat oil and toast the spices,” Steve said, as he scrolled back up to the beginning of the recipe. He had a feeling there were many more ingredients on the counter than they actually needed, but he decided to tactfully not point it out. Tony was surveying the kitchen like a king contemplating his stressful, yet ultimately satisfying, kingdom.

“In what?” Tony disappeared around the island, and Steve heard him opening cupboards again.

“...I don't know. Doesn’t Bruce use one of those high-sided pans?”

There was a crash, and Steve peered around the island to see Tony and every pan they owned spilled across the floor. He raised the high-sided non-stick in triumph. “Nailed it!”

They got the pan on the stove and a healthy dollop of oil sizzling at the bottom after only a few minutes. Bruce hadn’t put down measurements for the spices. Tony suggested they do equal amounts of each, measuring with a spoon, but Steve felt strongly that they should smell each one and do more of the ones that smelled best.

“But what if we like different ones?” Tony asked. Steve just shook his head and shoved a jar labelled cumin under Tony’s nose. Tony sniffed too deeply and reared back, coughing and snuffling. “Yeah I like that one,” he choked out as his eyes streamed. 

Steve covered his mouth with his free hand to muffle the laughter that threatened to spill out. “Maybe we should just put in random amounts.”

Tony downed several handfuls of water from the sink then nodded. He lined up the jars that matched the list Bruce had sent him and started dumping them in the pan. The colours were so pretty together that Steve started shaking out little patterns with the jars, puddling the bright yellows and reds in the sizzling oil. 

When they were done, they both leaned back and looked at what they’d created. 

“It’s very pretty,” Tony said, “and it’s either going to be way too strong or taste like nothing at all.”

“Because we have no idea what we’re doing.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, we’re superheros. I think we’re up for the challenge.”

Tony took a wooden spoon and started mixing the spices around, swirling through the piles of colour they’d made and making a deep yellow-brown streak across the bottom of the pan. The kitchen started to smell wonderful, the fragrant spices wafting up from the pan and filling every nook and cranny in the small space. 

“What’s next?” Tony asked, and Steve picked up the phone and scrolled through the message to find the next part. 

“Thinly slice the onions,” Steve read out. He reached for the knife Tony had left next to the cutting board, but Tony stopped him.

“Ah, ah. I’m an engineer, taking things apart is my specialty.”

“I don’t think cutting vegetables exactly counts as ‘taking things apart,’” Steve shot back, but Tony had already rolled up his sleeves and was slicing the top off the onion. “If you cut your finger off, I’m not taking you to the ER.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time DUM-E’s had to glue a digit back on.” 

Steve shot Tony a look, but Tony just winked and went back to slicing. True to his word, he handled the onion well, and a moment later he was using the knife to scrape the onion strips into the pan. Tony poked them with the spoon. 

They watched them cook in silence that should be uncomfortable but somehow wasn’t. Whether it was the late night, or the obvious distraction, for the first time since they’d met, Steve didn’t feel like he was the kid sitting at the adults' table, desperately trying to keep up with a conversation that was practically in another language. They just… occupied the same space. It was nice. The adrenaline rush from Steve’s nightmare had long faded, and the warmth from the stove was chasing away the last of the frost. 

Once the onions were soft and started to look a bit see-through, Tony prompted Steve again. “What now?”

“Looks like you just add the spinach.”

“Just dump it in?”

Steve shrugged. He grabbed the plastic tub of spinach and pulled open the tab with a satisfying tearing noise. The spinach was fresh and bright, and Steve couldn't resist pulling out a handful of leaves and shoving them in his mouth. Spinach was something he hadn’t eaten much at all before the future, and never fresh. It was kind of amazing.

“Hey,” Tony chastised gently, brandishing the spice and oil covered spoon at him. “Don’t eat it all or we’ll have nothing to cook with.”

“There are two more containers of it, Tony. We’re not going to run out.”

“Bruce says it takes more than you think.”

Steve started pulling out handfuls of spinach and adding them to the pan, watching the steam hiss up as the heat pulled the moisture from the greens. “Do you just eat this on its own?” Steve asked.

“Oh shit. Rice.” Tony handed the spoon to Steve, who poked at the growing mountain of spinach. There was no way they were going to fit much more of it in the pan. “That’s something I know how to do,” Tony went on, his head back in the pan cupboard.

He came up with a pot and a lid, which turned out to be the wrong size. Two pots and four lids later, he finally found a matching set. Steve poked the spinach absently, noting with concern that it seemed to be shrinking at an astonishing rate while Tony added water and rice to the pot and set it on the stove. 

“How is it that you can’t cook eggs but you know how to make rice?” Steve asked around another mouthful of crisp spinach.

“Rhodey and I had a hot plate in our dorm room. We weren't supposed to have one at all, but I got it so I could mix chemistry projects even when I didn’t have lab time. But of course, he used it for food. And we were students so -” Tony shrugged as if the punchline was obvious.

“But you were rich.”

“Yeah, but it’s not about that. Food takes time and energy. I had better things to do. I figured out I could make a huge pot of rice, sometimes with other stuff I just threw on top, and it’d keep me going for a couple days. That way I could focus on my work.”

Tony fiddled with spoon he’d used to stir the rice and avoided Steve’s gaze, which Steve had to admit, he hadn’t pulled away from Tony since he’d started speaking. “You work too much,” Steve said softly then cringed. That hadn’t been what he meant to say. But Tony only tensed for a moment then smiled.

“You sound like Pepper.”

“I thought you were just, you know, busy right now, but it sounds like you’ve been going pretty non-stop your whole life,” Steve said.

Tony shrugged one shoulder and started trying to balance the spoon on his finger. “Well, I’ve always had a lot to do… I’m sure I’ll get a break one of these days, Cap.” His voice had softened and warmed, quiet enough now that Steve found himself drawn in closer, the low words forming a small cocoon surrounding just the two of them and their cooking, leaving the rest of the tower behind. It made Steve’s head spin.

“Uh, how much spinach did you put in?” Tony asked, looking at the pan now.

Steve looked down. There was a sad lump of green in the corner of the pan, surrounded by a vast black sea of empty non-stick. “Um. The whole package.”

“Minus what you ate,” Tony said accusingly.

“I hardly ate any! It just… shrunk a lot.”

“Hmm.” Tony grabbed a second package of spinach and upended the whole thing over the pan, presumably before Steve could get at any of it.

Steve scrambled to contain the cascade of greenery with his spoon, pressing it into the pan. They both stood in silence and watched as it cooked, shrinking down to a modest, deep green layer over the bottom of the pan. 

“Huh.” Tony took the spoon from Steve, his fingers brushing over the back of Steve’s hand as he pulled it away. He poked the curry. “Smells good though.”

Steve had to concede that point. The room smelled amazing now, and Steve's stomach rumbled despite the late hour. Tony added plain yogurt to the spinach, which Steve wasn’t sure was a good idea, but was in Bruce’s instructions, then took the rice off the burner and fluffed it up. Tony grabbed dishes while Steve grabbed spoons and they piled up a mountain of rice and spinach in their bowls. Steve made for the table, but Tony tipped his head towards the couch, so Steve joined him there. 

Tony flipped the TV on and surfed around for a while, trying to choose something to watch. In the meantime, Steve turned to his food. It didn’t look particularly appealing, but it smelled wonderful - strong and complex. Steve scooped up a bite of both rice and curry and shoved it in his mouth. The spices from the curry popped and fizzed on his tongue, brought to life by the sweet nip of the onions. The grainy firmnness of the rice contrasted the soft squish of the spinach leaves. His eyes widened, and he turned to Tony.

“It’s good?” Instead of waiting for an answer, Tony scooped up a mouthful of his own. He nodded as he chewed. “Not exactly the same, but pretty damn good.”

They ate in silence for a while, the TV playing some sitcom Steve didn’t recognize. Steve thought for the hundredth time about bringing up what he'd been told by the HYDRA agent with the bomb. He wanted to ask Tony what he thought the man had meant by "skeletons in the closet." He knew they'd all done things they weren't proud of, worked for people who were less than upstanding, but the way the man had said it made it sound more recent. Like they were somehow being hypocritical by fighting HYDRA, and he'd thought it was funny. Steve wanted to ask, because he genuinely wanted to know Tony's opinion. Tony, who seemed to quietly know everything about everyone on the team without having to ask. Tony, who had shipped a specialized StarkPad to Jane so Thor could stay in touch with her, who always flipped the subtitles on when Clint came in the room because he said once that he preferred them, who had remodelled the training robots they fought against at least eleven times without being asked. 

But also, Tony, who was sure that Steve distrusted him, disliked him. Tony, whose hand Steve couldn't seem to take without a panic attack. If Steve asked, he couldn't imagine it wouldn't come out sounding like an accusation, so he said nothing.

After a few more quiet mouthfuls, Tony turned to Steve with a grin. He held out a closed fist towards Steve. “We fucking cooked.”

Steve chuckled and bumped his own fist against Tony’s. That had been… kind of fun? When Tony wasn’t overrun with work or making Steve fling himself off of tall things, he wasn’t that hard to be around after all. 

“We fucking cooked,” Steve echoed, earning a laugh that settled low in his stomach and kept him smiling through the next several bites of their midnight meal.

**

That feeling stayed with Steve right through to the next day’s training and it went better than it ever had before. Tony engaged with the practice, working on the drills they’d planned out. He didn’t mention Steve’s discomfort with the armour, but he did give him a little push on the back when Steve tried to siddle out of the line to work on codes with Thor. 

Still, Steve survived, and when everyone had filed out, he was left with a fluttery energy he’d never had after training before. It made him need to move continuously, fingers tapping on his thighs, eyes flitting around the gym. He needed something to burn this off.

As if she were in his head, Natasha suddenly reappeared. “Wanna spar?”

“Training’s over,” Steve said. “Don’t you have other things to do?”

“Training’s never over, and I was going to run for a bit anyway, but I’d rather put some bruises on you.” She smirked.

Steve smiled back, “You can certainly try. Though, even if you did manage to land any, they wouldn’t last long.” He tossed his sweater aside and made for the huge square of mats in the far corner. Natasha joined him.

“We’ll see about that.”

She stretched her arms up high then, without and warning, spun and charged at Steve. He cursed softly and dodged out of the way, but it became clear that she’d never meant to catch him, She twisted down to the ground, hooked around his ankles and pressed, knocking him to his knees. He reached for her, but there was no time; between heartbeats she curled over his body and pinned him to the ground.

Steve huffed out a breath and tapped the mats with a flat palm, rolling his eyes. “Not fair, I wasn’t ready,” he said lightly, knowing it would get a laugh out of her. 

They sprung up and dove again. This time, Steve made himself breathe deep and slow, sinking into the easy flow where he could see her movements in advance and react without thinking. Her technique with him was to avoid and dodge as much as she could until she got him off balance and then hit hard, bringing him down, but if he was prepared for it, it was a lot harder for her to get him that way.

Watching her move, reminded of what she was capable of, Steve considered for the first time that the "skeletons in the closet" that the HYDRA bomber had talked about might have been a reference to Natasha. Without knowing how close they were, someone might think that trusting Nat was the weak link in the Avengers' chain. She had the most checkered past of all the them, the most 'red in her ledger,' and if Steve wanted to upset the team's balance, she'd be the one he'd go after. And HYDRA would probably know about her, not everything she'd told him, but enough of it. What they didn't know, was that Steve knew Natasha, right down to her bones, and he trusted her. 

He thought about mentioning it, but for all her strength, her past still made her uncomfortable, and he didn't want to upset the easy friendliness they were basking in while the wrestled. If the comment had been about her, it was nothing more than a misplaced insult, and he should forget about it.

He stayed centered, didn’t look for the shots that looked easy or obvious, and held his ground, not letting her herd him across the mats. They next time she tried to strike, Steve caught her wrist and spun her to the mats, managing to pin her facedown underneath him. She tapped out, and he sprung up, holding out a hand to help her up.

“So…” he started, not entirely sure where he was going. She cocked an eyebrow in question and started circling again. “I spent some time with Tony last night.”

“Oh yeah?” She got him hard in the ribs, and they traded blows for a moment, in silence, save for their heavy panting. 

When they parted next, Steve brushed the sweat off his brow, eyes fixed on her as she slunk around the mats. “Yeah, we - uh - we cooked?”

She smiled, breaking her tense battle stance. “Wait, you what?”

Steve charged. 

He caught her around the middle in a rugby tackle and heard the  _ oof  _ of her breath leaving her lungs as he slammed her to the floor. He straddled her thighs, tensed, but she went limp, arms spread wide on other side of her. She looked up at him. “You cooked?”

Steve shrugged, suddenly feeling self-conscious. “Yeah. We made this curry thing. It was like, midnight desperation food. I guess he doesn't sleep well either. But it was… nice? I feel like we could maybe be friends after all.” Steve couldn’t read Nat’s expression, but it was altogether to curious and considering to not be terrifying. “What?”

“Nothing.” She tapped his leg, and he stood up, pulling her up after him. “So you like him?”’ she asked far too casually, and something hot flickered in Steve’s belly.

“...I don’t hate him…” He eyed her curiously as she swooped in again, catching him on the jaw before he could dodge, then easily skipping out of the way of his sloppy hook. 

“Progress.” 

“I guess?”

“You guys have been spending time down here,” she said lightly.

Steve blanched, and she seized an opportunity to get him to the floor. He tapped out then rolled out of her hold but stayed on the floor. She folded down beside him, legs crossed, looking at him curiously. “Did he tell you?”

“No. I’m a spy, Steve. You live with a spy. Did you really think you could keep it a secret? What I don’t know is what you two get up to. Normally, I’d think you were burning off a little steam of the non-sparring variety.”

Steve didn’t think he could have gotten any redder, but he felt his skin heat and knew he’d succeed. “What the fuck, Nat?! We're barely talking. We’re not - we’re not. No.”

She shrugged. “Alright. Not like I have a horse in that race, though I think a little roll in the proverbial hay might be good for you. But you two sneaking down to the gym, in the middle of the night, turning the cameras off, coming back out all sweaty and smiling, what’s a girl to think?”

“Ugh.” Steve plastered both hands over his face and groaned. “It’s not like that. We’re - uh - we’re practicing maneuvers... Oh god that sounds even worse.”

She laughed lightly and patted him gently on the arm. “It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me. I just wanted to make sure everything was alright between you two.”

“It is,” Steve insisted, maybe a little too strongly. “Or at least, it’s getting better. I think we might be almost friends? At the very least, we’re good coworkers.”

“That’s good. He’s listening to you now. I kind thought you’d fucke-” 

“Nat! Jesus.”

“- but I guess you earned his respect.” She patted him again. “Good job. I’m wrecked, I’m going to go shower.”

Her footsteps disappeared through the doorway, and Steve let his arm flop away so he could gaze mournfully up at the ceiling. Nat thought he and Stark were - were… sleeping together. What a bizarre idea. 

For one, Tony absolutely did not think about Steve that way. Apparently, he respected him now, but even that was new and shaky; he certainly wasn’t interested in Steve in any personal way, not even as close friends.

And for that matter, neither was Steve. Tony was brash and arrogant, all sharp edges and closed doors. He was impossible to get close to. They needed a solid relationship for the good of the team, but there wasn't anything else there. So. It wasn’t like Steve liked him or anything, he just needed Stark to respect his authority, and now, apparently, he did. 

So that was that.


	8. Chapter 8

Things between them continued to get easier. Tony’s work seemed to have calmed, and with it, so had his snappish mood. He made more time for the team, and more time for Steve. They continued their practice catches in the gym when the other Avengers were out, and as far as Steve knew, Tony kept his promise to keep it to himself. 

Natasha’s words occasionally burned in the back of his mind, making Steve wonder what he’d say if any of their other teammates found out about their late night meet-ups and thought something less than savory about it. He almost brought it up with Tony a few times, but when it came down to it, he couldn’t think of words that didn’t sound weird to say out loud. 

The practices were helping, though. Training was going well. Steve could now be caught by Tony during drills without involuntarily punching him, and, in the field, the team was a well-oiled machine. They had a few conflicts back to back - HYDRA again, and then a complicated drugs bust with specialized weaponry the NYPD had asked for backup on - and everything had gone smooth as silk.

For the first time, Steve really, truly believed he could do this thing.

The things the HYDRA agent had said to him in Trenton had been locked firmly away in Steve's mind. He was convinced, now, that there was no merit to it. The man had been trying to throw him off, trying to upset him, and managed to hit a nerve.

Steve folded his arms over the back of the couch and snuck a look at Clint, Nat, and Thor while their eyes were fixed on the TV. They waited for Bruce to show up and tell them why he’d asked them all to meet up here today. Back in Fury's meeting he'd looked at these guys and seen a threat, a challenge he wasn't sure he could meet. Now he saw friends, partners. He smiled fondly at the back of their heads. 

The sound of the elevator made them all turn and watch as Tony swanned into the room, Bruce in tow.

“Team bonding!” Tony announced, as if he was answering some silent question.

“What?” Clint asked around his bottle of Coke. And Steve was momentarily distracted because he suddenly realized that it was a bottle, not a can. At some point over the last month, the sodas in the stocked common fridge had gone from cans to bottles. Steve looked down at the one he clutched in his hand. He hadn’t even noticed. He’d stopped having that weird moment of time disassociation. He’d stopped tasting metal every time he drank one. Tony must have -

“Team bonding!” Tony repeated, pulling Steve out of his thoughts before he could do something silly like interrupt everyone to ask about soda cans. “We’re a team, right? So we need to do team bonding outside of attempting to murder each other in Cap’s dungeon-gym.”

“What do you have in mind?” Thor asked.

Tony grinned like a shark. “Laser tag.”

“What’s that?” Thor met Steve’s eyes, together in their confusion, but Clint and Nat were laughing.

Bruce smiled softly, his eyes flicking up to Tony then back to the group. “It’s a game. You have a light gun and the room is dark and you run around and try to shoot each other.”

Thor grinned. “Sounds delightful!”

“Where can  _ we  _ go do laser tag?” Clint asked.

“The gym!” Tony said. “I made some small alterations.”

“So what you’re saying,” Nat began, unfolding from the couch, “is that instead of attempting to murder each other very seriously in Caps dungeon-gym, we’re going to attempt to murder each other very ridiculously in your dungeon-gym?”

Tony pointed at her. “Yes. Absolutely.”

“I’m in.”

Tony rubbed his hands together, and Bruce smiled wider than Steve had ever seen him smile before.

They made their way down to find that Tony and Bruce had already set everything up. The gym had been altered, the equipment moved around, several large screens acting as dividing walls, and with the lights off, it looked like an entirely different place. Steve found his heart rate picking up as he eyed the room with interest. This could actually be fun.

Tony handed out the laser guns, and Steve hefted his, getting a sense of the weight and balance. Clint was grinning too cunningly.

“No super powers,” Bruce said. “I can’t Hulk, Tony can’t use the suit. You two have to leave your equipment behind.” Bruce gestured at Nat and Steve. “We can’t do anything about him,” he flicked a hand towards Clint.

“He should have to play with his right hand tied behind his back,” Tony said.

Bruce frowned. “That’s hardly fair -”

But Clint was already tucking his right behind him. “Not a problem.”

They all turned to look at him for a moment, while he smiled smugly at them.

“Maybe both hands,” Steve suggested, and the others nodded.

“Rude.” Clint brandished his gun at them. “Are we going or what? Don’t tell me we’re going to have to go through the same endless safety talk they do at the normal place?”

“Don’t throw the guns,” Bruce said, with visible exasperation. “JARVIS keeps score.”

Tony stepped to the side, spread his arms wide and took a moment for expectation to settle over the crowd. His eyes met Steve’s and he  _ winked  _ which, for some bizarre reason, made Steve blush. Luckily, only a few seconds later, he dropped his arms, and the lights shut off with an audible clank. The team all dipped their chins to their chests, mouths falling open as they held out their hands and gazed at them. Hologram targets had appeared on their chests, hands, and heads, glowing blue and red in the dark.

“This is awesome,” Clint said.

“Okay,” Tony said, “we get five minutes to spread out, then the lights will flash three times and we begin. Teams are allowed, but you can’t arrange anything in advance, they have to be forged in the heat of the moment. If you get hit, your chest will start flashing and your gun will stop working. No special powers, beyond what you can’t help. J is the ref, all conflicts go to him. Ready?”

A chorus of “ready”s rippled around the room.

“Alright. Go!”

They darted off into the dark, and the room immediately fell silent. It was incredible how quiet they could all be when they tried. Steve assumed Bruce’s training was having a positive effect, because even the usually awkward scientist disappeared into the dark. Steve slipped his way along the far wall, heading for the range, but everything was out of place, making the large, open space more of a maze than it usually was.

A small scuffle to his left made Steve stop and press his back against the wall. He missed his shield like a cut-off limb, but instead of feeling anxious about it, he was filled with a rush of exciting adrenaline. For the first time, this was  _ fun.  _ Sneaking around and shooting each other as a game was something he’d never thought to do, but at every noise and corner his heart skipped along with a giddy little prance, and he couldn’t keep a smile off his face. 

Then, more movement to his left, and this time is was unmistakably a person. He kept his back pressed to the wall and slid along, crouching low so his targets wouldn’t be in the expected places. A thump was followed by a squeak - Bruce? He peered around the corner. 

Tony unknowingly had Bruce cornered behind an upturned weight bench, trapping him from escaping around the corner. Tony was partially hidden, most of his targets behind a screen, but Steve could see the top of his head, his eyes fixed on where he’d seen Bruce last. 

But Bruce… Steve could see his back clearly and neither of them could see Steve. He crouched even lower and shuffled along closer to the edge. His targets glowed, so he kept his gun behind the wall for as long as he could. When he was lined up, he raised his gun and aimed along it at Bruce’s back. He only had one shot - if they heard him fire, Bruce would retreat further into hiding, and Tony might get a shot off in his direction.

Steve took a breath and fired. His gun chirped, and Bruce’s targets exploded with a sad, video game style whine, flashing violently. Steve ducked behind the wall again, heart pounding, grinning to himself. He heard Bruce grumbling as he walked off the course, gun held up in surrender. He walked past Steve who winked at him, and he smiled and shook his head. 

“Get Tony for me, will you?” Bruce whispered as he slipped past, and Steve nodded. 

He checked quickly, but Tony had disappeared from his spot, so Steve pressed on, cutting across the gym to circle around to the other side. He hadn’t heard anyone else get taken out, though occasional bursts of chirping gunfire broke through the silence. 

As he turned towards the corner, he heard a small shift in weight, and he immediately slammed his back against the wall just in time to hear a gun chirp. He looked down at his targets, but they weren’t flashing. He peered around the corner - nothing. He turned back, and his heart leapt up into his throat, making him clutch a hand to his chest. 

“Clint, holy shit.” Clint stood there, gun pointed at Steve, not moving. “What are you doing? You've got me.”

“I have a proposal,” Clint said.

Steve smiled, low and slow. “Alright…”

“I’m the only one who can take out Nat, you’re the only one who can take out Tony. Thor’s having too much fun - one of them will get him any minute. I propose you and I team up and take those two down. Neither of us can win on our own, but together we can walk away with the trophy. And you know Nat and Tony are too full of themselves to team up. They’ll want the prize solo.”

“I don’t think there is a prize,” Steve said, but Clint glared at him.

“Are you in or out, Rogers?”

“I’m in, I’m in.”

“Alright.” Clint lowered his gun and sidled up close. “You find Stark, I’ll find Nat. Ideally, we let one of them take out -” There was an outbreak of gunfire and then the sad game noise chimed again, followed by Thor’s laughter. “- Thor,’ Clint finished. “Excellent.”

“Okay.” Steve made to take off, but Clint caught his arm.

“If you see Nat, don’t even try. Leave her for me. I’ll leave Stark for you.”

“Deal.” They shook hands, and Steve flicked his eyes up towards the ceiling. He assumed JARVIS was programmed to register their partnership and end the game if they were the only two left. 

Steve set off again, a new desire to win raring within him. He’d been sure he wasn’t going to, since Clint was likely to take him out, but now, with Clint on his side, he had a shot.

He worked his way back towards where he’d last seen Tony, but there was no sign of him there now.

A crate rested against the wall, and Steve decided to take a page from Clint’s book, hopping up onto it easily and peering over the half wall. He felt exposed like this, but it was mostly because  _ he  _ could see well, not that they could see him. The serum had enhanced his night vision as well, and, combined with his vantage point, it wasn’t long before a figure came into view. Nat was stalking along the inner wall between the range and the main gym, moving slowly and silently. 

Steve lifted his gun, then lowered it again. Clint had said to leave her for him, and as easy as the shot seemed, he didn’t take it. He wished desperately that they had their comms though. A heartbeat later, he was glad he hadn’t, because Tony came into view. If he’d shot Nat, the noise would have drawn Tony’s attention to his hiding spot, and he might not have been able to take them both out in time.

Nat paused, listening, and Steve tensed, stilling even his breathing so the only sound he made was the pumping of his heart rushing in his ears. She glanced his way, but didn’t see him, hidden as he was by the top of the wall, and she moved on. 

It was like watching a slow motion car crash. Steve could see Nat and Tony inching closer and closer to each other, unknowing. He kept his gun fixed on Tony, but he was farther away than Nat and on an awkward angle so Steve didn’t take the shot, especially when Nat would almost certainly take him out before he had time to slip down behind the wall again.

Steve found himself placing bets with himself on which of the two of them would take the other out first, switching back and forth in his choice while he watched. In the end, neither of them did. Tony turned the corner at the same time Nat shifted along the wall into view and they both raised their guns, frozen. Steve could see Nat’s lips moving, but he couldn’t tell what she was saying. 

He almost had sights on Tony… if he would shift to the left…

A gun chime rang out from high, high up near the ceiling and Nat’s vest exploded. She swore, and when Tony spun to get eyes on Clint, his shoulder target came into sight. Steve raised his gun and fired.

Tony’s targets went off, and he cried out, throwing his hands up in defeat. The lights came up, and Thor and Bruce ran back through the maze to meet the rest of them in the middle. Clint held up a hand, still breathing heavily, and Steve gave him a sharp high five, unable to squash his grin. “That was fun,” he breathed, and Tony beamed.

For a moment, they all just stared at each other, smiling

Then, “Go again?” Thor asked, eyes twinkling. 

**

The scratch of the pencil was soothing, even as Steve’s mind churned pointlessly. He sketched out the shoulders of the Howlies, copying a picture that he had a perfect image of preserved forever in his mind, then working in Peggy, who hadn’t been there that day. He drew her young and vibrant, the way he had left her in that car, seventy years ago, not the way he had left her last weekend, blinking blankly at him. He left an empty spot in the middle where he had stood, focusing his energy on marking out the careful shapes of his long-gone friends.

Family.

There was a rustling noise to his left, and he didn’t look up. He supposed sketching in the common lounge was an invitation to be interrupted, and he wasn’t sure if he’d been hoping to be noticed or left alone when he’d set up here. 

“Can I see?”

Steve didn’t startle when it was Tony’s voice that broke into his privacy; he had known it was him from his footsteps. He tipped the page down and Tony’s head appeared by his shoulder, leaning over to look. 

“Wow. You’re good.”

“Thanks.”

“Did you always know you wanted to be an artist?” Tony sat on the couch perpendicular to Steve’s armchair. He raised his eyebrows in question, reaching for the sketchbook that lay on the coffee table, then picked it up and opened it when Steve nodded.

“I didn’t want to be an artist,” Steve corrected him.   
  


“But you went to art school.”

“Well, yeah. I was a scrawny scrap of a kid who had a bit of talent. It was the only thing I  _ could  _ do. It was what my mom wanted for me. All I ever wanted to do was make a difference. I thought maybe I could draw cartoons for the paper some day. You know, political stuff. But then the war started and…” Steve shrugged again. “I never really  _ wanted  _ to be an artist. It was just something I did.’

“And now?”

“Now… it’s something I do.” That was all he could say, and Tony didn't press. Steve picked his pencil up again and continued sketching. When the Howlies were done, he stared at the big blank space in the middle, the Captain America shaped hole. He scratched out a set of thin, bony shoulders, a slight frame, a tough scowl, and weak fingers wrapped around the handle of a garbage can lid. The figure didn’t fill the blank space left for it, leaving a halo of stark white between it and the others.

Tony craned his neck to look. “Is that how you still see yourself?”

“Sometimes. In some ways. Sometimes I feel like this body is just a casing for that kid. Then I look at everything that’s happened since then, and I don’t know. I know I’m not him anymore. Maybe I’ve drifted too far…”

“You’re still a good man,” Tony said softly, and Steve’s heart skipped and stuttered in his chest. “Things always get greyer the older you get.” He chuckled and gestured to his perfectly styled hair. “In more ways than one. But it gets easier. And you’re doing a good job.”

Steve blinked at Tony for a moment. “Uh… thanks. Really, Tony. It’s good to hear.”

“Good.”

“So, on a scale of one to ten, how much do you hate the future?” Tony said gently, leaving it open to be treated as a joke or as a serious question.

“Five point eight,” Steve said with a grin, and Tony snorted. “Nah, the future’s not bad. It’s overwhelming sometimes. And I have to be so careful, that’s scary.”

“Careful?”

“It used to be that no one even knew Steve Rogers. The reels and comic books were all about Captain America. I didn’t have to pretend to be something I wasn’t because I  _ was _ Cap when I was on duty, and then I got time to just be Steve by myself. Not a lot, but a little. The Howlies never expected me to be someone I wasn’t. Neither did Bucky. Or Peggy.

“And now, to wake up in this world with social media and 24/7 news and paparazzi… I have to be on all the time, because if someone catches you off…” Steve snapped his fingers. “I know it’s even worse for you, but it all changed for me overnight. I never had a chance to adjust. And I screw up all the time. And now everyone can watch it happen in real time and tweet at me just how badly I bit it, every time.” He tipped forward, last week's tabloid covers fluttering through his mind, and scrubbed both hands over his face. “Sometimes I wish they’d just left me in the ice.”

Tony stood up abruptly, and Steve startled back.

“Alright, I think it’s time to take this to the next level.”

Steve spluttered. “Take what to - what?” There was no way Tony was talking about -

“It’s time for phase two, Cap.” His hands went to the bracelets on his wrists, and Steve’s heart rate plummeted back to normal than skyrocketed again as he realized that Tony meant it was time to ramp up their training.

“What’s phase two?” Steve asked, taking two unintentional steps backwards before stopping himself.

Tony grinned. The armour shot out of the elevator and slammed into him, piece by piece wrapping itself around Tony’s body and whirring into place with the pieces beside it. Steve swallowed hard. He’d seen Tony do that a hundred times, but the more he saw it, the more… intriguing it became. He used to hate the noise, the rough grind of metal on metal, the inevitable whiplash Tony would leave in his wake as he blasted away.

But now, Steve had come to find the armour fascinating. He’d been experiencing it up close for weeks now, and he could see why Tony was so proud of it. It was incredible. Back in the 40s, when Steve had thought the future would involve flying cars, he would have believed that Iron Man was possible, easily. He had no understanding of technology and no scope or history to temper his expectations.

Now, however, Steve knew tech, he used it, understood it. With the internet as a diving board, he’d been able to leap into a sea of knowledge he’d never have had access to before. So, now, he could see -  _ really see -  _ what a marvel Iron Man was. And Tony had built it, all by himself, first while kidnapped and alone in a cave, and then in the lab that was only a few floors beneath Steve’s feet. It was incredible.

That didn’t mean he wanted it touching him.

But Tony held out his gauntleted hand, and Steve flinched towards it. Curiosity threatened fear, and his fingers itched to reach out and find out what Tony was talking about. 

“Come on, we’re down to what? A four point two? Don’t you trust me at least a little bit by now?”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” Steve hastened to say. “I don’t know why… I just…” He looked at the metal covered hand and imagined it slipping loose, letting him fall… fall…

“Steve.” His name snapped him back to the present, and he looked up to Tony’s eyes. He had the faceplate open and seeing him inside soothed the rising panic. “What is it about it that scares you?”

“It… it doesn’t feel like you inside… it feels… I know it’s crazy but I can’t stop thinking about falling.”

“I’ve never dropped you,” Tony insisted.

“I  _ know.”  _ Steve grit his teeth to stop an irritated huff from slipping out. The worst part of an illogical fear was trying to explain it to someone else. “I never said it made sense.”

Tony didn’t make a move towards him, but he also didn’t lower his hand, and, after several seconds of tense silence, Steve reached out and grabbed it. Tony tugged him close, right up against his chest, but the faceplate was still open and Steve’s cheeks heated with the knowledge that they were so close. “Trust me,” Tony whispered, then he snapped the faceplate down.

Steve took a steadying breath and settled into the hold he was used to now. Not being able to see Tony was both a relief and a stressor; he no longer felt the rising, rushing wildness that being close to Tony elicited these days, but the armour was impersonal and untrustworthy.

The window opened, and Steve tensed. He knew Tony was going to push it and take him outside, he’d sensed it, but he still didn’t feel ready.

“Do you have a safeword, hot stuff?” Tony asked lightly.

“W-what?”

“A safeword. Did they not have kinky sex back in the 30s?”

“No - I - of course they did. I just - what are you talking about?”

Tony laughed, and usually Steve was irritated by a laugh he knew was directed at him, but this time he wanted to laugh too. It was so absurd. “A word. That makes everything stop. You say it, I’ll put you down as quickly as I safely can. Does that make sense? Then if you feel panicky and need to cuss me out or scream or something, I won’t have to constantly ask you if you’re going to pass out.”

“I’m not going to pass out,” Steve grumbled.

Tony snorted. “Pick a word, Cap.”

“Um.”

“Something you wouldn’t normally say during - uh -  _ flying.  _ So for instance, ‘Tony,’ ‘amazing,’ ‘incredible,’ ‘wow,’ and ‘perfect,’ would all be bad choices.”

“You know, your modesty is really something we should all aspire to.” Steve rolled his eyes and shifted more comfortably into Tony’s rock solid grip. “Any word?" Sometimes Tony reminded him of a twister, whipping up everything in its path and flinging it somewhere new. "Uh, 'Kansas.'”

“You got it.” And they took off.

Steve’s breath whipped out of his lungs, and he squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his face into the metal chestplate of the suit. He almost,  _ almost,  _ said "Kansas" right away, but he managed to bite his tongue. They flew in silence for a few tense moments, Steve worried that his fingers were going to break from squeezing too hard.

“What are you afraid of?” Tony asked out of the blue.

Steve struggled to find the breath to answer. “Falling,” he bit out. “Being dropped.’

“So what if I drop you, what’s the worst that could happen?”

Steve choked out a tense laugh. “Really?”

“Open your eyes.”

Steve sucked in a steadying breath then prised his eyes open. They were moving terrifyingly fast, but instead of being high in the air, zipping around skyscrapers, like he expected, they were skimming low over the water, taking a wide path around the island. “Oh,” he breathed.

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Tony repeated.

“I fall in the water,” Steve managed to say, some of the panic receding as he realized that Tony wasn’t going to take him higher. 

“And how would you handle it, if that happened?”

He could see now, what Tony was doing: out-logicing his anxiety. He would have rolled his eyes if he hadn’t been blinking hard against the biting, rushing air to stop tears from spilling down his cheeks and chilling his skin. Still, he answered, “I’d swim to shore.”

“How far can you swim?”

Steve twisted his head to judge the distance to safety. “Four times that, at least.”

“Alright.”

Steve huffed an unamused breath out of his nose, but the wind whipped it away before it could make an impact. 

“What are you really afraid of?” Tony asked, more softly this time. He rolled lazily through the sky, and Steve’s heart skipped as his arms shifted on the metal plates, but he didn’t fall.

They turned wide around the island, and Steve found himself watching the buildings rush by. The city looked so different and exactly the same at the same time. It set a strange feeling wriggling around in his gut. 

“Falling…” Steve said again, but it wasn’t as confident.

“You fall all the time. You flung yourself out of that building without a care in the world. It’s not falling.” 

They were approaching the tower again, and Steve could feel Tony banking, heading back towards home. The urge to give the “right” answer to Tony’s question before the flight was done overwhelmed Steve until, instead of being able to think about the question, all he could think about was time running out.

“I - I don’t know,” he finally stuttered out as Tony broke away from the water and blasted up the side of the building. They were high now, and Steve squeezed his eyes shut again, but it was over in a moment. Tony alighted on the floor again, mere feet from where he had first picked up Steve, and Steve blinked around the room, summoning his breath again. It felt like it had never happened, like a dream, it was over so fast.

“Well, maybe you need to figure that out,” Tony said with a shrug. The armour peeled away and Tony stepped out onto the floor, stretching out his arms. “Good flight.” He patted Steve on the arm and started to walk towards the door. 

“Hey, Tony?” Steve called after him, feeling an odd sort of thrill when Tony stopped immediately and turned around expectantly. 

“Yes?”

“That was only a three.”

Tony’s smile was brilliant enough to light the tower for a week.


	9. Chapter 9

Steve thought a lot about what Tony had said over the next few weeks. Tony didn't take him flying outside the tower again, but Steve found the experience would play in his mind over and over whenever he let his focus wander. The memory wasn't scary, even though he knew, consciously, that at the time he'd been very anxious. In his memory, he wasn't afraid of Tony dropping him, he could enjoy the thrilling rush of the wind fluttering through his hair, the speed - so much more intense than his fastest trip on his bike - and the glittering water beneath them, catching the rays of sunlight.

For the first time, he could understand why Tony loved to fly.

They kept up their secret training alongside the group training, but Steve started to see the toll it was taking on Tony. He was the only one of them who had a full-time job on top of his superheroing, and the circles under his eyes grew darker, he starting snapping every time he was interrupted, and more than once, he nodded off at a movie night.

The Avengers were all worried about him, but Steve carried the extra weight of the time Tony was investing into him alone. He did his best to offset some of that by offering what help to Tony he could. He asked Bruce to teach him to make some of Tony's favourite dishes - including a more polished version of the spinach curry they'd bumbled through together.

The first time he'd appeared in the doorway to the workshop with a steaming bowl, Tony had cocked an eyebrow and stuttered in the phone conversation he was part way through. His eyes had followed Steve's path across the room to the one clear spot he could find on one of his many workbenches. Steve set the bowl down, shot Tony an uneasy smile, then walked out.

The next night, during their Code Icarus training, Tony had thanked him. Or tried, anyway.

"What was up with the food, Cap?"

Steve had come to learn that Tony used his nickname as a distancing measure when he was feeling off-kilter. The times he came up with "Steve," something preened a bit in Steve's chest - the idea that he'd gotten Tony to be real for a moment, let down the facade he was starting to see past. "I made extra. Thought you might like some."

Tony considered him for a moment, while Steve strapped on the shield; they'd started practicing the falls with the shield, Steve learning to move it out of the way so he wouldn't clobber Tony in the head or block his field of vision. Tony was now catching him nine times out of ten, and Steve found himself more startled by the falls that didn't end with the whir of repulsors than the ones that did.

"It was a lot better than last time," Tony finally said, breaking into a cheeky smile.

Steve snorted. "I practiced."

"Gonna take up cooking then?" Tony rolled out his shoulders and wandered in a large circle across the floor while he waited for Steve to get ready. "That'd be a great retirement plan for you. You could compete on one of those celebrity baking shows - do they have celebrity baking shows? Oh man, you could _host_ one." Tony grinned, and Steve returned with an eyeroll.

"Doubt I'll get the chance to retire, but if I do, I think there are other things I'd rather do with my time." Steve turned and walked towards the ladder for the perch, working the leather of his gloves between his fingers.

"Like what?" The simple question echoed through the gym and brought Steve to a halt. There was something serious there he'd never heard in Tony's voice before, not when they were joking around like this. He turned on his heel.

"I - I don't know."

"Do you do anything for fun?"

"Do you?" Steve shot back.

Tony nodded slowly. They hung there for a moment, staring at each other then Tony broke it with a gesture towards the perch, snapping the faceplate closed. Steve climbed the ladder, feeling shaken in a way he couldn't quite pin a label on.

Tony didn't let him hit the ground; he collided with him the second he tipped off the perch, the fastest catch he'd ever done. Steve relaxed into the hold, trusting that the first punch to his lungs would ease again and he'd catch a breath after a few seconds. Tony lowered them to the floor, but he didn't let go of Steve this time, popping the faceplate open with his arm still around his waist. "Do you really not have any hobbies, Steve?"

"I draw… I guess." He thought about his sketchbook sitting on his desk upstairs. He hadn't drawn anything but the past since his fall at the HYDRA base.

"You do." Tony brightened. "You're very good. You should draw DUM-E sometime. I can't even tell you the kick he'd get out of that."

Steve felt like he should be struggling to be released, but he didn't feel the need to move. They hung there for another moment of nearly-awkward silence. "What do you do?" Steve finally asked.

Tony shrugged, then seemed to realize he was still clutching Steve to his chest. He released him slowly. "I build things. It's not just my job, I do it for fun too. I mean, in a way, besides what it was borne out of, Iron Man has always been more of a hobby."

Steve snorted. "If I'd said, 'I like to throw the shield around in my spare time,' you wouldn't have accepted that answer."

Tony actually laughed, and the satisfaction in Steve's chest puffed up again. "Fair enough. Alright, I play music. My mom taught me to play the piano as a kid."

"I've never heard you play."

Tony shrugged again. "I don't play much anymore." He shot Steve a pointed glance. "Look, I wasn't saying I was the perfect role model. It's just - you're young, and you don't have to be Captain America forever. Thought maybe there'd be something you'd like to do after."

Steve had a flashing vision of the white picket fence, the kids, the weekend baseball games and dancing in the late-night kitchen light with someone who loved him. He'd given up on that a while ago. "You work too hard," Steve said, trying to keep his voice gentle, appreciative, caring, and, for the first time, Tony didn't tense at those words.

"I do what I have to…" he said cryptically. "It feels like -" he cut himself off, glancing at Steve like he was only realizing for the first time who he was talking to, but after what appeared to be a brief argument with himself, he plowed on. "It feels like because I have the ability to help, I'm obligated to. But there's so many ways to help… I try and do them all. It's probably too much, isn't it?" He shot Steve a self-deprecating smile.

"Maybe a bit. If you wear yourself down to the bone, you won't be able to help much at all."

"Yeah..." Tony's eyes drifted somewhere far away. "Again?" He gestured towards the ladder.

Steve nodded, recognizing the dismissal of the topic. He cut the training session short, however, urging Tony to go to bed instead of back to work. Tony didn't look inclined to agree, but to Steve's surprise, when they both stepped in the elevator, Tony pushed the button for the penthouse instead of back down to the workshop.

Steve stayed up late that night, something new and unsteadying coursing through his veins.

He kept bringing Tony food, and Tony brightened a little bit more every time he showed up, eventually gesturing towards a squishy armchair in the corner and telling Steve he was welcome to sit there to read if he wanted to.

Steve wasn't always welcome - sometimes the door to the workshop was locked, and Steve would put Tony's plate in the fridge with a JARVIS-transmitted note for him to grab it later - but when he was, he found he settled easily into Tony's space.

Tony still looked tired and overworked, sometimes disappearing into the hallway to have angry-sounding phone conversations in low, growling tones, only to come back in with finger-furrows through his hair. But Steve managed to wiggle more laughs out of him, and when Tony looked ready to faceplant right into a circuit board he was soldering on, Steve could poke him towards bed with fairly frequent success.

And Tony's workshop was fun. Steve brought books at first, then found the courage to bring his sketchbook instead, finally immortalizing DUM-E as he deserved.

He showed Tony all his sketches and, to his surprise, Tony seemed interested.

Their training sessions started being half-chatting, half-training.

Tony started picking the seat next to Steve at team meetings.

And just like that, they were friends.

**

A blast of energy ripped past Steve's ear, and he rolled to the side, ducking low. One of the robots was on the other side of the bunker he hid behind. "Southwest corner," he whispered into his comm.

"Gotcha," Tony said back.

Steve crept along the wall, staying low and keeping his eyes on the corner where the bot could appear at any moment. He could hear Clint and Nat on the other side of the large border wall, The steady _thunk thunk_ of Clint's bow alternating with the zap of her bites. Steve worked his way around the bunker just in time to see Tony blast in. He shot the bot from behind, luring it his way and out into the open. Steve hauled back with the shield and threw.

"Nice shot, Cap!" Tony shot off into the air again.

The two of them made it to the border wall and broke through to find Clint and Nat facing an army of the things. They were trading blows, but the bots didn't seem to be going down in significant numbers.

"There's too many," Nat grit out.

Steve knocked four back with one throw of his shield. "I'm calling it." He waited five seconds to give the others a chance to object, then called out, "Code Green!"

There was a single heartbeat of anticipatory silence, then a roar. The Hulk burst through the border wall with a shower of debris and tore into the bots. They had the upper hand now, and bit by bit they gained traction against the robotic onslaught. The Hulk showed no mercy, tearing them into pieces and tossing their broken bodies aside to spark and twitch. After half an hour of furious battle, the bots all lay broken or disabled. As one they stilled, waiting, then JARVIS came over the loudspeaker.

"Fifty-seven minutes and twenty-three seconds. That's fourteen minutes and eight seconds better than your previous record."

Tony flipped the faceplate up and shot the Hulk a look. "Do you really have to rip them up so brutally? These things cost money, you know." He kicked one, and it sparked sadly.

Clint snorted. "Come on, I know you just churn those things out in the fabricator. The training bot budget is probably lower than the froyo budget for this damn tower."

"That -" Tony pointed a robot leg he'd picked up at Clint. "- is no lie. I think we're single-handedly altering national froyo consumption statistics." He looked around at the carnage from the exercises. "Or six-handedly, anyway."

"Five," Steve said haughtily. "Don't include me in your ridiculous obsession. Ice cream all the way."

They all rolled their eyes except the Hulk who had become bored with their conversation and was dismantling the rest of the border wall that divided the gym. "Hulk like froyo," he muttered to himself as he gripped the head of a training robot and squeezed until it popped, spraying electronics over the floor.

Tony winced. "Um, Nat? Might be time for a nap," he said pointedly.

Nat glanced at Steve, and he nodded, then she walked over to the Hulk, talking in her soothing, low voice. Steve watched, while still giving them their privacy. They'd tried a lot of methods for bringing Bruce back, but this seemed to work best. Steve hadn't seen the technique born, Nat and Bruce had just come to him one day with the solution, and if it was working, he didn't want to question it.

There was still the niggling fear that Nat would be out of commission one day and the Hulk wouldn't want to let go, but this was still progress, so Steve was trying to look at the positives for now. Tony set his robotic clean up crew to work, taking down the scenario they'd set up and pushing all the broken robot parts into the recycler for Tony to reuse.

"Gotta run," Tony said, jogging up to Steve's side. "I have a conference call I can't miss. See you tomorrow?"

Steve nodded. They'd been meeting for catching practice every day for the past week, and neither of them seemed to want to take a break. That morning they'd gotten distracted for a solid hour, just talking, but the few catches they did were great. There was still always the first rush of panic when Steve felt metal arms clamp around him, but once that first flash of fear was over, it was getting easier and easier to relax. "That was a good scenario, Tony. Thanks for setting it up."

Tony clapped his arm to Steve's shoulder then trotted off towards the door. Maybe tomorrow morning, Steve would bring his new sketchbook down and show Tony that since they'd talked, about hobbies the other day, he'd been experimenting with some new subject matter. He had a few still lifes of objects around his apartment, plus a from-memory portrait of each of the Avengers. Which, considering his super-powered memory, were as accurate as his hand could make them.

Bruce, newly himself, and Clint headed for the showers. There was still energy coursing through Steve's veins, and Nat could clearly tell because she stopped him from following them with a hand on his arm. "Wanna spar?"

"Really?" Steve stopped and eyed her up. "Even after all of that?"

"Yeah. I'm still keyed up. Let's grapple." She tossed her water bottle aside and led the way over to the mats.

Steve suspected she was doing this entirely for him, able to sense his restlessness and knowing there was no better way to burn it off than fighting it out. That or flying with Tony, but they still hadn't told the other Avengers about that.

Steve stepped on the mats and Nat immediately charged, knocking the breath from his lungs as she caught him in an expert rugby tackle, then spun around him to twist his body to the ground. He tapped out as soon as he hit the mats. "Not fair! I wasn't ready. You always do that."

"Constant vigilance, Rogers!" She sprung to her feet and circled him lightly.

He pointed at her, keeping his body relaxed, but marking every step she took with his peripheral vision. "I understood that reference."

She snorted then dove, and Steve took his opportunity. He sidestepped lightly, dodging the tackle he knew she was going to try for. He got his arm around her waist and flipped her backwards, rolling over after to straddle her hips. She tapped him once and they jumped to their feet again.

Over and over they wrestled each other down, no one keeping score, but both having a general understanding that if they did, it would be pretty even. After two hours of sparring, Steve could finally feel a sheen of sweat break out, the pull of soreness in his muscles. The frenetic energy that had filled him had calmed. After hs next tap out, he didn't stand.

"Okay, I'm done for.'

Nat flopped down onto the mats beside him and started stretching out, using Steve's ankle to draw her reach well beyond her own outstretched toes. When she was done, she tugged on his arm. "Come up with me."

"Haven't you seen enough of me today?"

"Never."

Steve had been expecting a joke, but she smiled so honestly that he couldn't help but grin back. "Okay fine. Don't know why you guys like it up there so much, though." Steve pulled a sweatshirt out of his bag and put it on.

"It feels like freedom," she said lightly, leading the way up the stairs. Steve tugged his zipper up as he trotted along behind her. "Though Clint just likes it cause he's half-bird."

Steve rolled his eyes, but she couldn't see him. She pushed open the door to the roof, and he stepped out behind her. The wind immediately whipped his hair around his face, getting sweat in his eyes, and he grimaced, holding up his arm to block it. Nat tugged him down to a spot they'd set up with lawn chairs. Sitting low, the wind went over them instead of around them, and Steve was able to breathe again.

The tops of the other buildings twinkled and glowed all around them, the bustling sounds of the city lost to the rushing air that swirled over their heads. It felt precariously like the top of the world.

Nat cracked one of the sodas after handing the other to Steve. He toyed with the pull tab on his while she sipped.

"That was a good scenario," she said.

"It was. I'm glad Bruce felt confident enough to participate. Thank you for working with him."

Nat shot him a look. "You don't like that you don't get it."

"I -" Steve started sharply. He shut his mouth, tried again, softer. "You're right. I don't like it. I just wish you could teach the rest of us. We can work with him on it - does the Hulk not trust us?"

"You're a control freak, Rogers."

"How is that -" Fresh frustration welled up in him and he wasn't sure where it was coming from. But he let it out all at once. "I don't even want to be in control!" he burst out. "I never asked to be the leader, Nat, _christ."_ He kicked at the gravel at his feet, instantly sorry for his outburst, but not quite able to say so yet.

She was silent for a moment, and when she did speak, her voice was overly steady and controlled. "You didn't choose to be leader, but since you are, you think you have to control everything. You obsess about the details. You refuse to delegate. When something goes wrong you torture yourself about it then aggressively try to fix the problem so it won't happen again. You carry this constant guilt around like you know it's all going to go to shit and there's nothing you can do to stop it, but you're still going to let it take over your entire life."

Steve stared at her in stunned silence.

"You're not alone, Steve. We've all got your back. And it's on all of us when something goes wrong. You might be the leader, but this is a team, not a classroom, not an office building. You can trust us. You can trust us to own it when we fuck up, and to step in and handle the things that are too much for you."

Steve fell silent, letting the words roll around in his mind. Control and trust. That was the answer.

 _What are you really afraid of?_ Tony's words came back to him.

"I'm afraid of being out of control," Steve admitted, quietly now. "I'm afraid that if I put myself in someone else's hands they'll - they'll -"

"They'll use you."

"Yeah.... Erskine… he said something to me before the procedure. He told me I was chosen because I was a good man. I had a good heart. Not because I was strong, or smart, or powerful. There were plenty of other men who had all of that, but he liked my heart. He died trying to create the perfect soldier, but, to him, the perfect soldier wasn't a killing machine, he was a good man, given the strength to do something about it.

"I don't necessarily think he was wrong, but it's not that simple is it? Trusting this team means trusting myself less and less, and that scares me. Everyone I trust seems to suffer for me. That scares me too. I'm afraid to trust you guys, to give up that control. But I do, really. I do trust you." He turned to Nat. "You know that, right?"

"I know."

"It's just scary sometimes. Some people were easier to get there with than others." Steve finally popped open his soda and took a sip. "I'm afraid to give up control, but I don't want it for myself."

"Catch 22."

"I have to learn to delegate."

Nat hummed. "That's not quite it. You have to learn to share, to ask for help, to measure outcomes based on everyone's input and not just your own. You have to trust that when one of says what we're willing to give up for the Avengers, that we mean it. I know you wish you could take every hit, suffer through every hurt yourself, so we don't have to, but it doesn't work that way. The hardest part of being a leader is letting other people make sacrifices. If you know that's the best path to take, you need to take it."

Steve sighed and shuffled down in his seat. The crisp air was chilling his sweaty skin, but it was kind of nice, refreshing. "When'd you get so smart?"

"I was always this smart but because I can kill a man with a paperclip and my pinky toe, people generally don't get close enough to notice." She grinned at him.

They fell silent, and Steve found his thoughts drifting back towards Tony. Tony had been right: Steve hadn't been acknowledging what he was afraid of. And he'd known it, really he had, but he hadn't quite been able to formulate it into a concrete idea that made sense. He trusted Tony to catch him, he had from the start, but he was terrified to give up control. If he was falling, he was falling on his own terms. If Tony caught him - the outcome wasn't up to him anymore.

It was silly and irrational, but it was how Steve felt. Or at least how he had felt. He remembered the way Tony had skimmed them along the water. He imagined going higher, flying farther away, Tony's arms clamped firmly around Steve's middle. He let his eyes fall shut and imagined the wind around him was from shooting through the air.

They banked away from the island until they were far enough from shore that Steve would be hard-pressed to swim that far, in his uniform no less, without hitting the edges of true exhaustion. _I trust you,_ Steve thought to himself. In his mind, Tony shot straight up into the air, spiraling higher and higher. He never spoke, never told Steve where they were going or how high it would be before he stopped climbing. And Steve just clung on and remembered to breathe and dug deep to find trust so strong that it overwhelmed the fear.

Tony stilled, stopped, and Steve took a breath. He opened his eyes again, and the bright lines of the city around them, glowing in the evening dark, spun him for a moment, making him think he really was high up in the sky with Tony. But he had a plastic lawn chair supporting him, instead of Tony's metal-clad arms, and it was Nat there beside him, sipping at her drink. Steve took a deep pull too, the sweet, bubbly soda grounding him back in the present.

Nat looked his way. "You okay?"

"Yeah… I think I just figured something out, is all. Thank you. I'll - I'll work on that control thing."

Nat nodded.

"Call me out on it, yeah?"

"Of course."

Steve smiled at her, then down at his soda, finally gazing out at the cityline, unable to stop smiling. He was pretty sure he could do what he'd just imagined. Maybe he'd ask Tony to take him as high as he safely could. And maybe, if they did it enough, one day it would be a zero. Steve wanted that.


	10. Chapter 10

Steve shuffled onto the elevator, tired, jetlagged, and hungry. When it stopped five floors too early, he frowned, shuffling back into the far corner and trying to look uninterested in talking.

The doors slid open to reveal Tony, and Steve found himself surprisingly torn over whether he was glad to see him or not. A month ago, Tony would have been the worst person to step in the elevator when Steve was feeling this way, but to his surprise, it actually brightened him up a little now. Tony carried a manic energy around with him that leached into everyone he was near, and Steve could feel it shoving away the layers of exhaustion.

"Welcome home," Tony said, settling back against the far wall of the elevator. He was holding a remote control that looked like the one for the TV but much, much more complex. "How's Peggy?"

Steve snapped his gaze up from the device in Tony's hands to his face. His expression was impassive, but he was watching Steve carefully. Steve hesitated, but in the end, he sighed and shrugged. "Not great this time."

"Sorry."

He shrugged again. "There are good visits and bad."

The doors opened at Steve's floor, and he found himself unwilling to get off. Tony could either sense his hesitation, or Steve had stood there undecided for longer than he thought. "Hungry?" Tony asked.

Steve dragged his eyes over to him slowly, the thought of food making his stomach growl. "Yes?" He wasn't sure why it came out like a question.

"Come on." Tony hit the button to close the doors and they started up towards the penthouse. "I've got leftover Thai. I'll heat it up for us. Then you don't have to make something all sloppy and jetlagged."

Steve frowned. "I'm not… sloppy."

"You smell like public plane." The elevator doors opened again at the penthouse, and Tony walked off, nose wrinkled. Steve trailed after him, dropping his duffle by the door. "Why are you still using an airline when you could use my private jet?"

"I - I can use your private jet?"

Tony stared at him like he'd sprouted a second head. "Of course, I - wait, have I never offered you my private jet?"

"Um… no."

"Well, shit. Of course you can use it, Steve. It just sits there if people don't. Just tell JARVIS when you're going, and he'll make sure there are no conflicts."

"I - wow. Thank you, Tony."

Tony waved away his gratitude, tossing the complicated remote onto the counter as he did so. He kicked his shoes off and gestured Steve towards a bar stool along the kitchen island then opened the fridge and started hauling out a massive array of food containers. Steve watched Tony dump the food on plates and shove them all in his enormous microwave. He turned to lean against the counter and watched Steve right back.

Steve shook his head when he realized how long they'd been blinking at each other. "I'm so sorry," he said. "I guess I'm more tired than I thought. I zoned out there."

Tony laughed. "No worries. I've pulled enough multi-time zone trips in my life to know what it's like. I just wanted to see how long before you either talked or fell face-first on the counter."

Tony kept smiling at him, the microwave spinning and humming behind him, and something flickered to life in Steve's belly. Heat rushed into his cheeks, and Steve ducked his eyes down again to hide it, until the microwave beeped and Tony turned to check the food. Steve looked up again, taking Tony in. 

His jeans were well-worn and shapeless, hanging off his hips and puddling over his feet. It was in contrast to his overly tight t-shirt which clung to him like the undersuit, outlining the curves and edges of his body that Steve had never given any attention to before. But his mind's background noise was all soft, steady static, and he couldn't hear any reason not to stare anymore. Tony pulled plate after plate out of the microwave, and Steve traced the shape of his biceps while he moved, flexing and lifting. 

The food landed in front of Steve, a fork held out towards him between two of Tony's fingers, but Steve was no longer hungry. His stomach was filled with something else: super-serum powered butterflies. Still, he took the fork and dug in. Tony had dumped the containers out at random on a large selection of plates and they picked at it together, rotating the plates between them so they each got to try everything.

Tony leaned against the counter on one elbow while he ate, stretching his back out and groaning. "God, I'm too old to stand with my head in the armour for sixteen-hour stretches anymore."

Steve snorted. "Tony, I don't think it's possible to be young enough for that. That's insane."

"I had to fiddle with the electronics."

"For sixteen hours?"

"The supervillains aren't going to wait until my back isn't sore to attack." Tony said it lightly, but Steve could feel the weight under the words. 

"If I can ever help, you'll call me, right?"

Tony flicked his eyes up from the pad thai to peer at Steve's. They stayed there for a moment, gazes locked, Steve's insides twisting and dancing, until Tony broke away with a nod. "Thanks. I might take you up on that. Might as well put those muscles to good use, huh?" Tony winked.

Steve swallowed and tried to make it look like it was the mouthful of shrimp he was struggling with and not Tony's warm eyes. And what was  _ with  _ that? Tony winked at him all the time, he winked at everyone, but it had never made Steve feel like jumping up and doing a lap around the room before. Despite his post-plane exhaustion, he was suddenly full of a rush of jittery, manic energy that prickled under his skin and made his heart leap and stutter.

The last time he'd felt this way was… was Peggy. 

He briefly entertained the idea that this was some sort of residue, carryover, from spending two days with Peggy and then seeing Tony right away, but he dismissed it almost as quickly. He didn't feel that way about Peggy anymore, for one thing. Desire, attraction, had softened and melted into bone-deep affection, protectiveness, and care. And it was all wound up with a profound sense of loss that followed him everywhere he went.

But this was completely different. This was like watching Peggy knee one of her troops in the crotch for speaking back, or how her eyes flashed when someone challenged her. Only now it was Tony grinning at him from across the table, a forkful of khao soi hanging out of his mouth, that was making Steve feel that way. His stomach dropped out again, all too reminiscent of his brief experience with roller coasters, and Steve pushed up off his stool and away from the counter. Tony's smile shattered into a concerned frown.

"You okay?"

"Yeah… just -" Steve meant to say he was tired, that he should go to bed,  _ get out get out!  _ The panic part of him screamed. But today the part of him that just wanted to be around Tony was loudest, and it was screaming,  _ stay.  _ "Just need to pop to the bathroom. I'll be right back. Don't eat all the spring rolls, they're my favourite." He pointed his fork threatenly at Tony before tossing it aside, and Tony waggled his eyebrows, picking up a spring roll and slipping it into his mouth with an exaggerated moan that had Steve bolting out of the room with his lip caught between this teeth. The sound was meant to be teasing, sure, but there were certain parts of Steve's body that didn't seem to be aware of that.

Steve splashed water on his face and tried to shake out the squirming movement under his skin before going out to rejoin Tony.

He ended up staying well into the night, empty plates littered across the counter. They talked and talked, words so eager to get out that they piled up on top of each other, stumbling out in great rambling monologues. They talked about their recent battles and private training, Peggy and Tony's mom, food, travel, robots. They talked about Steve's fear of letting go of control.

"I trust you," Steve told him, deep into the night, a line of empty beer bottles added to the mess they'd already made of the kitchen.

"I trust you too," Tony whispered back. 

"For the first time, I really feel like we can do this, like we can make a difference, help people."

"Of course we can. We already have. You already have. You're saving the world, Cap."

"Thank you for not giving up on me. When I was being an idiot. When I was afraid but couldn't say it. We wouldn't have made as much progress as a team by now if you hadn't smacked some sense into me. Not sure we actually would be a team at all, really." Steve picked at the paper label on the bottle in his hand. He felt Tony shift next to him, but Steve kept his eyes downcast. If Tony's movement had rucked his too-tight shirt up over his hipbone again, Steve was in real danger of suffering some sort of cardiac event.

"Pff," Tony scoffed. "You'd be doing fine without me."

"I really wouldn't." This time, Steve's eyes did come up, but they bypassed Tony's body and settled on his warm, brown gaze. "I really wouldn't."

Tony shifted, making an odd jerky movement with his hand that looked like an uncomfortable combination between a dismissive wave and a shrug. "Well, it's - you know. Anyway. It's a good team," he finally managed to get out, and Steve found himself laughing despite the mess of feelings he was.

"It  _ is  _ a good team." 

It was hours before Steve made it to bed.

**

Steve ran full tilt down the bridge. “Icarus!” He called, and he registered Tony confirming it in the back of his mind. He gripped the railing and flipped over it, landing on the back of the escaping man. Building his own wings had been impressive - using them to knock over a series of high-end banks in Midtown, not so much. Steve balanced on his back and gripped a handful of wires and pulled, while the man flailed desperately, trying to catch Steve with a fist or an elbow, but with no luck. They spun in the air, but the flyer's controls were clearly hopelessly damaged from Steve's onslaught, and he rapidly lost altitude.

Steve heard the familiar ring of Mjolnir pulling Thor through the air, and he let go of the man, kicking away from him to plummet through the air on his own. He saw Thor pluck the criminal out of the air a second before red and gold metal collided with Steve's side. He curled up automatically now, holding the shield close to his body, and giving into the pull of the gauntlets as they manhandled him into the safest position.

Steve grinned as the air whipped past him. They'd taken this guy down so easily, working together as a seamless team - it was a rush. "Nice catch," he said, and Tony chuckled through the comms.

They took a wide turn around a skyscraper, then shot back to where the rest of the team waited. Thor had returned already, the wannabe-wingman scruffed and presented to the police. Clint was talking to a police officer, and Nat was standing with Bruce, who had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He was coming down from his Hulkings so easily now. 

Tony set Steve down carefully on the sidewalk, then landed beside him, popping his faceplate. "I'd love to get my hands on that tech…" he said.

Steve shot him an incredulous look. "Come on, don't tell me you couldn't build the same thing, a hundred times better, all on your own."

"Oh, of course I could. I want to laugh at all the silly mistakes he made."

Steve shoved his shoulder gently, not even shifting the bulk of the armour, but Tony laughed. "You're ridiculous."

"Hey, I've got a conference call - meet you back at the tower?"

"Sure thing. Thanks, Tony."

Iron Man blasted off, and Steve jogged over to the others to see if he was needed for anything. The thrill of a mission well-executed wouldn't settle, and he struggled to keep a silly grin off his face while he tried to give a serious police report. 

Back at the tower, Steve stripped down, showered, then tried to calm down enough to do a post-mission report of his own, but he found it nearly impossible to focus on his tablet screen. He kept remembering the way he'd let go, fallen, trusting completely in Tony to catch him. It felt like a final puzzle piece slipping into place. He needed to  _ do  _ something. He needed to share his breakthrough.

Tony would probably still be up - it wasn't that late - so Steve grabbed his tablet and his sketchbook and took the elevator down to the workshop. The lights inside the room were off, which was unusual, and Steve assumed he'd been wrong and Tony had gone to bed after all. But he tried the door on a whim, and it pushed open easily. Tony always locked the workshop when he either wasn't there or didn't want to be bothered. So if the door was open…

Steve stepped inside, his eyes adjusting to the low light. “Tony?” Steve stepped deeper into the workshop warily. 

He didn't want to be in here if Tony wasn’t, not just because he didn’t want to invade Tony’s privacy, but because he had no idea how any of Tony’s projects worked, and he knew several of them were weapons for the Avengers. He didn’t want to be on the receiving end of Nat’s new widow’s bites unintentionally. And Tony was always so secretive about what he was working on.

But a voice called, “Over here!” and Steve stepped around a bank of shelves to find Tony. He was sitting on the floor, a manic grin painted on his face, a disassembled… something spread out on the floor in a halo around him. DUM-E hovered nearby holding a rag which he kept shoving in Tony’s face. “Hey, Steve.” Tony smiled warmly at him, and Steve’s heart jumped up again.

“Hey. How are you doing?”

“I’m great. That was great.”

Steve stepped closer and blanched. There was a dark stain across the bottom of Tony’s grey tank top. “Oh my god, are you bleeding?” DUM-E shoved the rag towards Tony again, beeping plaintively as if to say  _ I’ve been trying to tell him! _

Tony looked down at his own gut and shrugged. “I have more shirts.”

“Tony, that’s - that’s not the point. What did medical say? Did you pop your stitches?”

“I didn’t go.”

“Oh, come  _ on.”  _

“What?”

“You didn’t even go?” Steve pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. “What if there’s internal damage?”

Tony squirmed, and something painful flashed across his face. “I’m fine.”

Steve stepped closer and crouched down in front of him. “At least let me look at it?” Steve asked gently. There was something here he didn’t understand, but he couldn’t walk away and leave Tony bleeding on his own.

Tony swallowed hard then looked up and met Steve’s eyes. “What makes you qualified, huh?” He was joking, but Steve knew a deflection when he saw one.

“I patch Nat up all the time,” he said. “Let me?”

Tony worried his bottom lip, then half shrugged. He set his tool down and held out the now empty hand towards Steve. “Fine.”

Steve pulled him to his feet and didn’t miss the wince of pain that flashed across Tony’s face. Tony walked towards the door at the back of the workshop, and Steve followed. It turned out to be a pretty opulent bathroom, complete with a long counter, multiple sinks, an eye wash station, and a shower.

“Wow. Nice.”

Tony shrugged again and tugged off his tank top. Steve’s eyes dropped to the cut across his stomach, but they had to drift past his bare chest to get there. Clear lines of shapely muscles framed Tony’s ribs, curling around the arc reactor embedded in the centre, the blue light casting him in an eerie glow, all highlights and shadows. The dark gash stained his well-defined abs, and Steve found his mouth going dry. He’d seen Tony shirtless before but there was something different about it this time. For one, this time he had permission to look, to touch. He swallowed again, but there wasn’t anything to swallow. His entire mouth had given up on providing him with saliva at the sight of Tony lounging against the bathroom counter, shirt off, sweatpants slung low over his jutting hip bones, crusted blood dried on his stomach.

Steve’s eyes flicked back up, and Tony was watching him, giving him a curious look. “Is it that bad?”

“Uh, yes, no! No it's not that bad,” Steve got out. “First aid kit?”

Tony gestured towards a cupboard, and Steve pulled out a large, white, plastic case. He snapped it open while Tony rummaged around in another cupboard. He came up with a clean, grey facecloth - much better than DUM-E’s offering - and handed it to Steve.

The world shrunk down with every step Steve took up to Tony’s side until it was nothing but a tiny bubble of the two of them. Tony didn’t speak, eyes fixed on Steve. The water sounded loud in the small space when Steve turned on the tap, running it over his fingers until it was warm. He wetted the cloth and reached out towards Tony’s injury. Tony didn’t try to take the cloth away, he just spread his arms a little to the side in invitation, which left Steve to gently wipe away the mess of blood and dirt that covered Tony's stomach. 

Tony flinched at the contact, and Steve resisted the urge to grip Tony’s hip with his other hand to keep him still. 

“I think it’s stopped bleeding,” Steve said, his voice echoing around the tiled room.

“Good.” There was something tense in Tony’s voice, and Steve looked up, worried his touch was hurting him, only to find Tony’s bottom lip tucked between his teeth and his eyes fixed firmly on Steve’s hand where it had stilled, pressing the cloth against Tony’s skin. 

“Does it hurt?”

Tony flicked his gaze up to Steve’s instead, releasing his lip. “Not anymore,” he barely whispered.

“Good…”

“Steve -?” Tony started, but Steve cut him off by dropping the cloth in the sink and turning back to the first aid kit. 

Electricity crackled between them, but Steve’s heart pounded painfully in his chest. He didn't want to examine it too closely - it was too head-spinning. Too unexpected. How had he and Tony gone from barely able to exchange a civil word to filling an entire bathroom with tension of an entirely different kind? Because, even he had to admit that’s what this was. 

Tony’s eyes were dark and entirely focused on him, and Steve could feel heat stirring low in his belly, alighting something that hadn’t had much attention since he came out of the ice. It seemed it had taken Tony to thaw it, but he wasn’t sure if it was something he wanted thawed. It was easier when desire was frozen. Then he knew his decisions were really his, not ruled by fantasy and lust. 

He pulled out a large package of gauze and the tape and turned back, pointedly ignoring Tony’s eyes. “That first aid kit is pretty picked over,” he joked, trying to shift the tense atmosphere to something more comfortable. “You use it a lot?”

“Ah, you know how it is. One day I drop the blow torch on my foot, the next DUM-E gives me a concussion with the fire extinguisher. All in a day’s work.”

Steve sprayed the wound with antiseptic, making Tony flinch again, then smoothed a piece of gauze over it and held it there with one hand, peeling the tape with the other. He tried to ignore how warm Tony’s skin was under his fingertips. “You need to be more careful.” He ripped the tape off with his teeth, then pressed it along the long side of the gauze. He could feel Tony’s eyes watching him intently, and his cheeks heated under the attention.

“Is it serious, doc?” Tony asked, too quietly to be entirely funny.

Steve looked up to raise an eyebrow at him, but that meant looking up into warm brown eyes that were looking down at him, and the butterflies that released in his stomach were a little overwhelming. Steve felt his breath hitch and hoped Tony didn’t notice. He dropped his eyes down again. “I think you’ll live,” he said, aiming for wry. Tony laughed, and Steve felt his abs jump under his hand.

Steve edged the rest of the gauze with tape and pressed it flat. When it was done, he threw the supplies back in the plastic case, finding his breath again as he moved away from Tony. But Tony didn’t move, watching Steve intently from where he leaned against the counter. He brought a hand up to cover the bandage without looking away, and Steve squirmed under the intensity of that gaze. 

“Steve -” Tony started again, painfully softly, but this time JARVIS cut him off.

“My apologies, sir, but you have a call on the priority line.” Tony sighed with his whole body and ran his hand through his hair backwards, making it stick up even wilder than before.

“Is everything alright?”

“Yeah.” Tony waved it off. “It’s just work stuff. I have to take it…” He trailed off, looking at Steve again. Then he shook his head and crossed the room to open a cupboard and pull out a fresh t-shirt. He slipped it over his head, greatly easing the tension in Steve’s chest, then frowned at him. “There’s something I’d like to talk to you about. Can I come up to your floor when this call is done?”

Steve tried to say,  _ no,  _ or,  _ now’s not a good time,  _ or,  _ sorry, I have a midnight dentist appointment,  _ because the way Tony was looking at him was altogether too stressful, and the looming conversation was likely to be even more so. Either Tony was going to tell him that Steve had to knock off his silly little crush, or he was going to admit to a crush of his own - and then what?

But Steve couldn’t find the words - or the strength - to turn him down, so he just nodded.

“Thanks,” Tony said, sounding truly grateful, and he walked out of the bathroom, back into the workshop. He was settling into his desk chair when Steve slipped through the door and into the elevator.

Up in his suite, Steve paced back and forth from the living room, through the kitchen, across the bedroom, and back to the living room again. Tony was going to come upstairs and want to talk, and Steve had to figure out what the hell was going on and what he should say. 

What did he want?

_ You want Tony,  _ his brain helpfully informed him, and Steve huffed out a frustrated breath. Did he really? Or did Tony just represent, well, sex? It had been a while - something like 70 years - and Steve was still a young man with needs. And Tony, well Tony was undeniably attractive. So maybe his brain had just equated Tony with attraction of that nature, and now he couldn’t move past it. 

He sat on the edge of his bed and tipped his face down into his palms. He thought about Tony with his shirt off, leaning back against the bathroom counter, hands gripping the countertop so his forearms flexed and his back arched just so.

But then he thought about finding Tony passed out on the common couch, snoring softly, hair wild, glasses askew, a forty-page report about something Steve would never understand in a million years sprawled over his stomach.

And Tony elbow deep in one of his classic cars, covered in grease, talking a mile a minute, on a manic streak.

Tony arguing vehemently with Bruce, brow creased and teeth clenched.

The curve of his shoulder when he wore tank tops.

The glow of the arc reactor.

How being ripped out of the air and flung across an open sky had changed from a terror to a thrill.

It wasn’t just sex; Steve had feelings. And he had to tell him.

Steve waited up all night, hovering tensely in his apartment, alternating pacing with attempting intense focus on something like reading or drawing and failing over and over. Eventually, he gave up and drew endless repeats of Tony’s face in his sketchbook, heart and head pounding, new waves of adrenaline coursing through his veins every time he thought he heard the elevator approaching.

He waited up all night, but Tony never came.


	11. Chapter 11

Even after Steve had given up all hope of Tony coming to see him, he still couldn’t sleep. He told JARVIS to let Tony know he was out if he did end up stopping by then slipped on his running shoes and made his way out into the crisp dawn. For the duration of his run, Steve managed not to think about last night, focusing on the thud of his feet on the pavement, the heat of his blood, the slight catch to his breath.

As soon as he slowed, the thoughts came rushing back. He hit the city again and dropped down to a slow jog, dodging the morning foot traffic on their way to work. And Tony flooded his mind. In the harsh light of day, the surety he'd had yesterday stretched tentatively thin. He did want Tony, badly, but he couldn't help thinking it was a bad idea. That, as their leader, he shouldn't let feelings twist this up and make it more complicated. Especially, when they were finally, _finally,_ coming together as a team.

He slowed to a halt outside Starbucks and caught site of a familiar splash of red hair tucked into the back corner. Nat had already ordered for him, and he collapsed in the chair opposite her, feeling the pleasant burn from his run. There were a lot of things Steve thought were frivolous and somewhat shocking about the future, and the drinks that coffee shops served was certainly one of them, but that didn't stop Steve from smiling as he slurped foam off his venti, 2 pump, extra-hot, extra-whip, caramel macchiato.

"Nice run?"

"It was alright."

"What's on your mind?"

Steve took a deep breath and dove in, forcing himself to get the words out before he could panic and stop them. "I think my friendship with Tony is… changing," he said quietly, eyes flicking around. But no one was paying them any mind.

Nat sipped her coffee. "Changing in what way?"

Steve could feel his cheeks heating, and he willed them to keeping from pinking. He opened his mouth then closed it again, usure of how to word it.

"Ah." Nat smiled.

Steve dropped his face into his palm. "It's such a horrible idea, isn't it?" He reared up again. "Everything was fine! We were finally getting along. He was listening to me in the field, we hung out, we could actually talk without one of us storming off…"

"And?"

"And then… it just kept getting easier, and easier. Too easy, I guess. Now it's so easy being around him, I never want to not be around him."

Nat's smile burst into a grin. "That's adorable." She leaned over the table and lowered her voice and Steve mirrored her on the other side. "Look, I get that it's weird. And I know it feels like it's going against some rule or something, but this isn't Jamie in accounting having a weekend fling with the boss; there's no precedent for this. I know you're worried about messing up the team, but you've gotta think about your own happiness too. What are the odds you'll find someone who's not a superhero who can relate to all this?" She gestured in a way that encompassed their whole lives.

Steve nodded slowly, still unconvinced.

"Shit, I'm not trying to imply that Tony's, like, your last chance or something. But if you've got a shot with him? Why waste it? So it goes wrong and you fuck over the Avengers and one of you bails - it's not like you were both going to stay forever in the first place, right? Better than the regret of lost chances."

Steve huffed out a sharp breath and took another sip of his latte. "That's basically what Tony asked me a few weeks ago - what am I going to do when this superheroing business is over?"

"Well, if things go your way, you'll be doing Tony."

"Nat!"

She snickered into her cup. "How does he feel?"

"I don't know…" Steve scratched his nail over the "Stan" written on the side of his cup. "I think he feels the same way, or at least, it seems like there's something coming from him. He was going to come up and talk to me about it last night."

"What happened?"

"He didn't show." Steve shrugged. "He got caught up in work, the usual. It's alright."

"Look, Rogers. I can tell the anticipation is killing you. Sure it'll suck to be rejected, or even to decide together that it's not a good idea, but if you never talk about it, you'll never know. It seems easier to drag it out so that you don't have to face an awkward conversation, but you'll be happier when it's over, freer. Go talk to him. Talk to him as soon as we get back. Don't chicken out."

Steve leveled a glare in her direction but her smile didn't weaken. He sighed. "Yeah, you're probably right. I guess it would have been easier if he'd come to me, because then he'd have to start it. I don't know what to say."

"Start with, 'Hey there hot stuff, I'd like to climb you like a tree. Check yes or no.'"

Steve rolled his eyes before standing and tossing his now empty cup in the trash. Nat followed him out. "Thanks for the advice," he grumbled. He pulled his hat lower over his eyes.

Nat bumped him with her shoulder. "Just tell him how you feel, honestly. The way you told me. Even if he doesn't feel the same way, he's not going to hold it against you, Steve. He's used to people falling for him - have you seen his ass?"

Heat crept up the back of Steve's neck. "Yes… I have…"

"So he won't mind. Maybe it'll be awkward for a few days, but it's Tony. He won't let it fester. He'll crack jokes and whisk you off your feet - quite literally - and you'll be fine."

Steve sighed. "Why does this have to be so hard? Why couldn't I just have fallen for you or something?"

Nat laughed and threaded her arm through his. "That would not have ended nicely, my dear."

They walked back to the tower arm in arm. Nat pointedly pushed the button for Tony's lab, then her own, then winked at Steve. He crossed his arms and sulked against the wall, but she had a point. It would feel better to have the conversation over and done with, even if it didn't go the way he wanted. He'd been ready to do it last night. The longer they put this off, the harder it would be. Besides, if Tony really had been working all through the night - lost track of time so badly he forgot about Steve - someone should check on him. That usually wasn't a great sign.

But the elevator doors slid open, and Steve could already see that the workshop looked empty. The lights were off, save for the gentle yellow glow of DUM-E on his charger, and all was still. If DUM-E was in bed, surely Tony was too.

Steve checked anyway, pressing his face against the glass and peering in to see if he could catch sight of movement, but there was nothing. The door was locked. He had an override but he was loathe to use it; it was for emergencies only.

So, Tony must be in bed, then. Or up in the kitchen eating. Steve checked the common floor first. Clint and Thor were playing cards at the table, but neither had seen Tony.

And so, filled with trepidation, Steve headed up the last few floors to the penthouse.

Outside Tony's door, Steve practiced what he was going to say a few times. _Tony, I'm glad we're friends now, but I think I also like you more than a friend. I think I'm - I -_

_I think I'm falling for you._

Steve could say that, right? He knocked.

Was that the right way to put it? It somehow didn't seem like enough. Surely, if you already thought you were falling for someone, it was sort of a done deal, wasn't it? Falling didn't last that long. Steve thought about his last solo fall, out of the window at the HYDRA base. How terrified he'd been then to have Tony's arms wrap around him, and how badly he wanted nothing but that now. Metal or flesh - he loved Tony either way.

And there it was. _I think I'm in love with you._ He tried that in his head, then silently out loud to the doorknob. _Tony, I'm in love with you._ His heart clenched. It might be more true, but he wasn't sure he could say it plainly like that.

Steve sighed then frowned. No one had answered the door. He knocked again, louder this time, and pressed his ear to the door to listen for a sleeping Tony grumbling at him to screw off or calling for him to come in, but there was nothing.

"JARVIS, is Tony sleeping?"

There was an awkward pause. "No, Captain. Mr. Stark is not currently sleeping in his room."

Steve frowned at the doorknob again. That was cryptic. "Is he sleeping somewhere else?"

"I am - unaware if Mr. Stark is sleeping somewhere other than the tower."

"So, he's not in the tower, then?"

"I do not have authorization to disclose that information."

Steve's frown deepened. That was the most obscure that JARVIS had ever been in the entire time Steve had lived here. He didn't usually sound so much, well, like a computer. "Is there anything you _can_ tell me about Tony currently?"

There was another pause, even longer than the first. "Mr Stark is not currently sleeping in his room."

Steve tapped his fist against Tony's door, pulling back just in time to stop it being a wood-splintering punch. He tried the doorknob and found it unlocked. "Tony? There's something wrong with JARVIS." He stuck his head in. It all looked quiet and unoccupied. "Tony?"

Steve crossed the living room to check the bedroom, but Tony's bed was crisply made and unslept in. A quick check proved the whole space empty, and by all appearances, it had been some time since Tony had been in here. Steve took the stairs two at a time back down to the common levels.

Clint and Thor had been joined by Nat, who gave him a cheeky grin when he appeared. "Hey, Steve," she sing-songed.

But whatever look he must have had on his face knocked the smile of hers as soon as he came into view. "Has anyone seen Tony this morning?"

Tension settled over the room. Clint dug his phone out of his pocket and started pressing keys. He held it to his ear.

Nat went through the same stilted conversation with JARVIS that Steve just had. Steve's heart sunk lower in his chest the longer anyone failed to provide any useful information.

"Who saw him last?" Thor asked.

"Probably me?" Steve said. "I saw him around midnight last night. He got called away by a work call. He was supposed to come up to my room after to talk to me about - uh - something, but he never showed up. I just assumed he got sucked into his work or fell asleep. But he's not in his workshop or his apartment now. And JARVIS is being weird."

Nat, ever the strategist, looked at the ceiling thoughtfully then said, "JARVIS, are any of the Iron Man armours out of the tower?"

JARVIS sounded almost relieved to be able to say, "The Mark VVII is _not in the tower,_ currently, Agent Romanov." It was very pointed.

"Tony's not here," Clint said, worry twisting his brow. "And JARVIS isn't allowed to talk about it?"

"This isn't right." Steve turned back to the stairs, and the others followed him, Nat calling out to JARVIS to let Bruce know to meet them at Tony's workshop.

The workshop was still dark and quiet when they arrived. This time, Steve used his emergency code without hesitation. The door sprung open, and he found his fingers itching for his shield as they walked in. Even though JARVIS had all but confirmed that Tony wasn't in the building, the tension of not knowing where he was had Steve so on edge that he was expecting someone to jump out of the corner at any minute and attack.

But no one did, and a thorough search of the workshop and its attached rooms revealed nothing unexpected. DUM-E woke from his charger and trailed after Steve, making concerned beeping noises, but he couldn't help them anymore than JARVIS apparently could, and they all arrived back in the middle of the room, at a loss.

Clint looked down at his phone. "I've called him four times, texted him three, messaged him on facebook, and sent him an Avengers alert - nothing."

"That's not like Tony," Nat said. "He always has his phone with him, even when he shouldn't."

"I don't like this…" Bruce said more to himself than anyone else.

Steve snapped his fingers. "I'll try Pepper. If anyone knows where he is, it'll be her." He scrolled through his contacts until he found her. It took three rings for her to answer, and Steve had another tiny heart attack in between each ring when she didn't pick up.

"Steve?" she finally answered.

"Pepper. Hi. Sorry, this is probably me worrying for nothing, but Tony's with you, right?"

"Tony? No. What's wrong?"

"He left the tower last night at some point after midnight and no one's seen him."

Pepper gasped. "Steve, is Tony _missing?"_

"We don't know that." Steve tried to reassure her. "It's only been a few hours. We've been looking for less than an hour. We all thought he was asleep. For all we know, he took the armour to get bagels from Montreal and figured he'd be back before anyone noticed… And his phone died…" Even as he said it, he knew it didn't sound plausible. "We don't know anything, Pepper."

"What does JARVIS say?"

"He won't tell us where Tony is. He says he can't."

Pepper hummed. "He has some privacy protocols that mess that up sometimes. If he's out for certain work things, JARVIS can't reveal where he is. It's a safety measure, in case someone gets into the tower, they can't trace him."

Steve felt his stomach twist a little at the thought that he wasn't an exception to that rule, but maybe Tony hadn't thought to change it since the Avengers moved in. Or maybe he didn't trust Steve. It didn't matter now, what they needed now was to find out - "Work!" Steve snapped his fingers.

"What?"

"Work, Pepper. I was with him last night - the last to see him here - and JARVIS said he had a work call on the priority line. That was when I left, about 8pm. Maybe there was something in that call that made him leave. Do you have records of who called him?"

"Of course. Let me put you on hold for a moment. I'll talk to his PA." Pepper clicked off and distressingly cheery hold music clicked on. Steve put the phone on speaker and took it away from his ear.

"She's talking to his PA," Steve said, and the group hovered anxiously around the phone while they waited. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve tracked Nat walking around the perimeter of the room, eyes on Tony's shelves and bins of projects and tools.

"Steve?" Pepper came back on.

"Yes?"

"There was no call. Everything work related is routed through SI. Even if people think they have Tony's personal cell number, they don't. There are only about ten people who do - all of you included -" Steve's fleeting poutiness at not being special was replaced with pleasure. " - so everything goes through SI in one way or another, and we have records of all of that. There's no record of a call to Tony, on any line, last night. Nothing after 6:30pm. So either it wasn't as late as you thought, or that wasn't a work call."

"Okay, thank you, Pepper. We're going to try and figure it out, but I'll keep you posted, okay?"

"Alright. Thanks, Steve. If I hear from him, I'll let you know. SI has protocols too - if he goes missing. After 24 hours, there are things I can put into motion."

They both fell silent for a moment, Steve not able to hang up the phone with the fear and grief he could feel radiating across the line.

"Steve…" She took a deep, unsteady breath. "Do you think he's been taken?"

"There's no sign of a struggle," Steve said quickly, as useless as the platitude felt. "JARVIS said he has a suit. He's okay, Pepper. He might be in a bit of trouble, but he's Tony. He'll be alright."

"Okay, thank you." She disconnected, and Steve repeated the same words over and over in his mind. He was Tony Stark. He'd be okay. He'd waltz in right when they were properly panicking and hold up his bag of bagels and lox.

Except that Steve was properly panicking now, and there was no sign of Tony.

A clicking noise drew Steve's attention back to the others. Nat was sitting at his computer. "Is that really -" he started, then cut himself off. He honestly didn't care if it was a violation of Tony's privacy. The rules that applied to other people didn't apply here. They couldn't wait 24 hours before Tony officially became missing, not with the kind of people that would be after him.

Nat typed, the crease between her eyebrows growing more pronounced as random-seeming numbers and letters flickered across the screen. Then her eyes flicked up. "I can't get in with JARVIS online. We have to unplug him temporarily. He's the first line of defense for Tony's systems, and seeing how he puts the intelligence in artificial intelligence, he's got me beat."

Steve blanched at the thought of unplugging JARVIS. It sounded like turning off a friend. "How do we even do that?"

"His servers are in that room." She waved her hand. "Just need to flick the breaker. He won't be hurt. We can bring him back up once I'm in."

Steve walked over to the door in question. It was locked, but, again, his override code had it swinging open. Inside, was a long bank of humming computers - not the kind that sat on his desk upstairs, but the kind that was just a line of whirring machines without cases. There was a breaker panel on the wall, and Steve switched them off one-by-one, plunging himself temporarily into darkness before finally hearing the suddenly absence of noise that meant the computers were off. He popped his head back out and the lights and machines in the main workshop were still working. He shut and locked the door again carefully. If they had to leave suddenly, he didn't want to leave JARVIS unsecured.

Nat went back to work, Clint leaning over the back of her chair and watching. Steve found himself wandering around the space, gut churning, head pounding. The terror of Tony being missing was settling deep and sharp in his chest now. Surely, if it was all some silly misunderstanding, then they would have heard from Tony by now? But there was no word.

Steve glanced at Clint, then pulled out his cell and typed out a quick message.

_Tony. Please answer. Please._

It was silly, he knew. There was no reason for Tony to contact him when he wouldn't respond to an Avengers alert, but Steve couldn't help trying. He couldn't stand here and do nothing.

He reached out blindly, and his hand settled on the lock for one of Tony's private cases. A large locker where he kept the kind of projects he couldn't share with anyone else. Steve had always been curious, had caught Tony squirreling things away in there multiple times when he'd come down to visit, but now it crossed his mind for the first time that there really didn't seem to be a reason for Tony to keep anything he was working on a secret.

In the beginning, Steve had assumed it was that Tony didn't trust him. It was the same way he hadn't wanted to show Tony his drawings - despite Tony looking anyway - or share his battle reviews with him. He and Tony didn't share things, so Tony being secretive about his work was just another part of him and Tony not getting along. But now they did get along, fantastically well, and Tony still didn't like Steve to see some of his work.

He glanced back at the desk the others were crowded around, then ran his hand over the padlock that kept the locker closed. JARVIS had said the call was a work call… but maybe SI wasn't the only work Tony was doing. He'd showed Steve SI projects before, but it was always this locker that he wouldn't share. This locker was the reason that sometimes the door to the workshop was shut, even to Steve's code, and the glass was blackened out.

This damn locker - and Tony was keeping secrets, and now he was missing. And suddenly Steve was pissed. Because after every leap their relationship had made, he still couldn't answer the fundamental question of what Tony was up to in his spare time. And Tony knew everything that Steve did, right down to where he went for his lunch and how many times a week he met Natasha for coffee.

Steve's hand clenched over the lock, and he heard Nat say "I got in," behind him, but he barely registered it, because almost without his permission, his hand was pulling down on the lock, and he could feel the metal giving.

The door gave an almighty creak, and Steve honestly wasn't sure what was going to give way first, the door or the lock itself. In the end, the lock snapped clean in two and fell to pieces in his hand. He stared at it for a moment, quietly stunned that he'd just broken into Tony's private locker, but then the door swung open, and the lock fell to the floor, forgotten.

"Oh my god…" Natasha said behind him, and he spun to meet her eyes, to share in his shock, but she wasn't looking at him, or at the locker - she was looking at the computer. "This is - I don't -"

It took a lot to render Natasha speechless, but Steve was feeling the same way himself. He pried the door to the locker the rest of the way open and stared. It was all the tech they'd fought over the last few months. One of the floating bomb balls was partially disassembled on the top shelf, a prototype next to it that looked almost exactly the same but less polished, the advanced weapons the drug dealers had used, even a sample that looked suspiciously like the sentient, orange sludge they'd faced so many months ago.

Tony had all of it stored here, studied - developed? It wasn't clear if they were things he'd designed himself, or just that he'd improved upon them, but there were half-finished projects that he'd clearly had his hand in. But why?

"Is that -?" Steve heard Bruce ask, and he turned back to the others. They seemed torn between Nat's screen and Steve's locker.

"What the fuck is going on?" Steve growled.

"Tony -" Nat started, then she leaned back in her chair and took a deep breath. "Tony sold those weapons to HYDRA." Her voice was breathless, choppy, like she'd been running for miles. Steve knew the anguish that was woven through every word, because he could feel it too.

"What?"

"Tony would not do that," Thor insisted.

"But… he did." She turned back to the screen, pointing. "He's had a deal with them for a long time, months. There's all kinds of evidence here, tucked away, but obvious. He opened the portal that brought the tentacle things through. He sold them the bombs. Both kinds. He sold those other weapons to them, and HYDRA sold them on to anyone who could pay. There are new contracts, new blueprints. He - he was going to sell them an Iron Man suit."

"No!" They all turned to look at Steve. "Tony would _never._ Those suits are - are everything…" Steve trailed off. Did he really know Tony, though? He had the evidence right in front of him that he didn't, that he never had.

"I wish it weren't true," Bruce said softly. "But this is pretty damning."

Steve turned back to the locker, filled with the stacks of things they'd been fighting against for months. The mole in the Avengers hadn't been a lie to upset Steve. There was one, and it was Tony.

"Tony betrayed us," he said. But what he felt like saying was, _Tony betrayed me._


	12. Chapter 12

"I can't believe it," Bruce said, voicing what was surely going through everyone's minds. 

And Steve absolutely  _ couldn't  _ believe it. Because Tony would never - he couldn't. Steve trusted him. As hard fought as it was, Steve trusted him now, and to believe that Tony was capable of lying to them all so completely, and for so long? "It's not possible," he muttered.

"There's got to be more to this story," Nat said, tense, "but for now all we have to go on is what we have here. We need to find Tony, and then we can get a straight answer."

Tension rippled around the room again. If Tony really had been playing them all this time, lying and stealing and making weapons deals right under their noses, it wasn't going to be a pretty reunion. But to Steve, Tony was innocent until proven guilty, and that kind of paper trail? It wasn't damning evidence to him. He needed to hear it from Tony himself.

"What else do you have there Nat?" Clint asked, leaning over the back of the chair. "Any idea where he is now?"

She went back to her typing, and Steve faced the locker again, poking through the debris inside. He hauled out the bomb from Rochester and rolled it around in his hands. It had clearly been deactivated, the ring in the centre no long glowing, but there was no doubt it was one of the ones from that fight. It even had a smudge mark on it where it had been hit with ash from another nearby bomb exploding. 

He set it back on the shelf and eyed the one next to it - sleeker, smoother, polished: Tony's newer version. A metal band clenched around his chest.

Fairfax." Natasha said, pulling him out of his head. "There's supposed to be a deal going down. It must have been what that phone call was about last night. They changed the location last minute it seems. There are a few encrypted emails about it between Tony and someone with the email address  _ behindthegate@hmail.com. _ They were going to meet at a storage unit in Fairfax so Tony could 'show off the new product' and this 'gate' person could 'make an offer."

"Is that where Tony is now?" Steve turned back to the desk and peered over Natasha's shoulder next to Clint. She was flipping through filles, scrolling through emails.

"Maybe? It was supposed to start over an hour ago, and deals like this can take anything from five minutes to several hours depending on what Tony was supposed to demonstrate, so it's worth a try at least. It's all we have to go on, anyway."

"Alright. Suit up."

"I think I should stay here and keep working on this," Bruce said, gesturing towards the computer. "If he's not there, you'll need intel for where to go next. And if you really need me, I can get there pretty fast with help from the big guy."

Steve nodded. "Good plan. Stay on comms."

The rest of the team burst out of the workshop, each member heading to their own floor to grab their stuff. The shield felt like it weighed three hundred pounds when Steve slung it on his back this time. He didn't know what this was - was it a rescue mission? Or were they going to arrest their friend? Either way was a gut-twisting possibility, especially when he'd finally realized the depths of his feelings for the other man.

The ride to Fairfax was tense and quiet, each Avenger sticking to themselves. No one wanted to offer empty platitudes that may turn out to be false, and there really was nothing else to say. All they had to go on was the email, and the email sent them here.

The warehouse itself was quiet and still. If there was an arms deal going on inside, they were certainly keeping it under the radar. The entrance was down a back alley that led to a long line of garage style doors that could be lifted up to reveal the space inside. Each space had two large doors leading in. Clint and Nat hung off to the sides while Thor and Steve marched up to the first door of number 89.

Steve grabbed the handle and pulled.

The entire garage exploded with a shower of shrapnel and flame, and Steve curled up behind the shield as he was propelled across the narrow alleyway and into the door opposite, bending it in on itself as he hit it full-force then crumpled to the ground.

He sucked in two sharp breaths then staggered to his feet again, blinking through the dust and smoke, trying to get eyes on his teammates. "Check in!" he yelled desperately, not yet able to find the balance to step away from the concrete wall he'd found with one hand.

"Widow!" Nat called back and Steve squeezed his eyes shut with relief. The others called in one after each other, "Thor," and, finally, a pained sounding, "Hawkeye." 

Steve let himself slide back down to the ground again, heart pumping. He wanted the smoke to clear, but at the same time, he didn't want to know what he'd find in there. What if Tony had been inside and they'd just blown him up? 

There was the rustling and cracking of debris and then Natasha came back on the line. "All clear."

"What was that? Widow? All clear? Is the unit clear?" Steve asked desperately.

"Unit is clear," she clarified. "No occupants. All it had in it was a sizable hunk of C4, set to go off as soon as the door was moved." 

"Fuck," Clint hissed out. 

Steve stretched his jaw out and shook his head. The explosion had left a persistent clicking in one of his ears that wouldn't fade. The serum usually took care of things like that, but it ticked on, almost rhythmically but not perfectly steady. There was a rise and fall to it. A click and then a gap, a click and then a shorter gap, a click -

Morse code.

"What?" Steve said, as if the person sending the message could hear him and talk back, but it just kept clicking away. 

"What's wrong?" Thor asked. 

"Quiet!" Steve finally pushed to his feet and walked back to the others, holding one hand out to silence them and pressing the other to his comm, cupping over his ear to amplify the sound. 

He let his eyes fall shut and listened. The message was repeating.

A...N...G...E...L...O...N...G...R...A...N...G...E...L...O...

"Long range…" he said to himself, ignoring the odd look the others were giving him. He trotted back into the quinjet and fiddled with the controls, looking for one button in particular. He found it, and with one click switched his comm frequency from the Avengers group comm to the single-line, long-range comm they used to stay in touch with Thor when he was out of the country. 

"- just waiting, Steve, come on… I know your super-soldier hearing can do this man, I can't fucking click all day. My fingers are getting tired -" Tony's voice came through the earpiece.

Steve sunk down into the pilot's chair, his legs giving out with relief. "Tony!"

"Steve! Fuck yes, I knew you'd hear me. You can hear me right?"

"I can hear you!" The others gathered around, and Steve waved at them to sit down and be quiet. "I can hear you, Tony. What happened?"

"I got fucking kidnapped," Tony growled. "By the very people I was chasing."

"We - uh - we found all these files…" Steve started, unsure of how to say it. "When we couldn't find you, we went through your computer -"

"You mean Nat went through my computer," Tony interjected lightly.

"- and we found all this stuff. It... it's not good, Tony. It says you were selling weapons to HYDRA for months now."

"I know."

"What?"

"I know it says that because Hammer is a fucking monologuing stereotypical evil cartoon villain shithead, and he couldn't keep his stupid little plan to himself which is why I'm contacting you at all instead of focusing my energy on busting the hell out of here which I'm absolutely going to do."

"Hammer? He's in prison."

"Oh, I know, but some idiot let him have a computer and that's really all it takes." There was a fierce rush of static, and Tony swore then grunted. "He's been selling HYDRA repulsor-based weapons under my name since all of this started. He had the paper trail all set up in advance. I guess one might say he  _ holds a bit of a grudge." _ Tony grunted again.

"Tony where are you, what are you doing?" Steve managed to get out, even as his heart was singing with relief that Tony wasn't responsible. He mouthed,  _ it wasn't him,  _ at the others and they all visibly relaxed as well.

"Who?" Clint asked softly.

_ Hammer,  _ Steve mouthed back, and Nat swore.

"I'm -" more grunting "- on my way out but you just -" He broke off completely, the line going dead.

"Power up the jet, they have him held somewhere." Steve shifted out of the pilot seat so Clint could take his place. "Tony? Tony? Are you still there?"

There was a long pause, then Tony came back on the line, his voice barely more than a whisper. "I'm here, Cap. And I'm on my way out. Don't worry about me. The only thugs Hammer could afford to do his wet work are clearly from the bargain bin. You need to go to Jacksonville."

"Why?"

"Because all of this is a diversion. You know the repulsor bomb we keep seeing pop up all over the damn place? Yeah, Hammer is shipping an epic load of them to a HYDRA base in South America. Once we lose track of them they're going to be impossible to find. But the chopper with the shipment is taking off from the roof of 82 Harbour Road in Jacksonville, and you guys still have time to stop them."

Steve shook his head even though Tony couldn't see him. "No, no, Tony. We'll come get you first and then -"

"No time, Steve. If that chopper takes off, we're in big trouble. They could level an entire city with that much firepower. You have to go, I'll be fine."

"Tony…"

"You have to go."

Steve turned away from the group and pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. He knew Tony was right: it was more important that they stop the weapons that could kill millions than save one man. But he wasn't just one man. He was Tony. And Steve didn't know how he could possibly live with himself if they saved the world but Tony didn't get out.

_ The hardest part of being a leader is letting other people make sacrifices. If you know that's the best path to take, you need to take it. _

Steve flicked his eyes up to Nat's for a moment, and she nodded. "Okay…" he said to Tony. "But the second we stop the chopper, I'm coming to get you myself, okay?"

"Alright, buddy. It's on. I'll be outta here before you even get to Florida." Steve could hear the challenging smirk in his voice.

"You do that. Tony, can you stay on the line?"

"It'll be patchy. Some of this place is covered by jammers. I found a good corner, but I gotta move soon."

"Alright - oh, can you just - if Hammer was behind all the weapons, why do you have a locker full of them in your workshop? Did he break in? Because if we've got a hole in security there, I need to send someone to -"

"No. Uh…" 

There was another long pause. Long enough that Steve said, "Tony?" and he heard the static crackle again.

"Yeah that was me, Cap. I stole them from the scene. I can't explain now, but I will later. I wasn't selling them, I just -" There was a desperation to his voice that Steve had never heard before.

"Yeah, okay. You tell me when we get out of this mess."

"I will. I promise."

"Okay, we're on our way to Jacksonville. Be careful, Tony."

"You too."

A moment later, the comm broke into static, but Steve kept the line open. It meant he couldn't communicate with the other Avengers if they got separated, but someone had to stay on the line in case Tony needed them. 

The flight south was tense. Steve gave the others the rundown on what Tony had told him, skirting the issues he hadn't explained yet. They didn't ask. All of them wanted to give Tony the benefit of the doubt, but Steve knew that even if he hadn't been responsible for HYDRA getting their hands on the repulsor weapons, he'd still hid this, hid it from Steve and the rest of the team, and that churned unhappily in Steve's stomach.

The city came into view, and Clint started circling around towards the harbour, but a flash of light broke from a nearby rooftop and the quinjet rattled violently, lurching to the side.

"Shit!" Clint went wild with the controls, and Steve and Nat struggled for a handhold as the jet spun and whirled in the air. "Setting her down!" 

It wasn't a pretty landing or a gentle one, but Clint set them down on adjacent building and they all poured out of the jet. There was a whole row of HYDRA agents spread across the rooftop, eyes fixed on them. Behind them, Steve could see a landing pad, one rooftop away, and on it sat a large cargo helicopter. The one Tony had told them about. He had to get through their defenses and stop that chopper from taking off.

Thor sprung forward with a cry, never one to wait for command, and the man who'd brought the quinjet down fired again, shouldering a massive weapon and firing a crackling blast of energy straight into Thor's chest. He dropped out of the sky, skidding across the gravel and sending up a cloud of dust, and they all charged.

Clint rolled to the side and pulled out his bow, a volley of arrows scattering the organized lines of HYDRA defenders. Steve pulled his shield out in front of him and smashed into the one closest to him. She staggered backwards, but flicked her hand up and something landed on Steve's shoulder. Pain rippled across his whole body, making his muscles clench up, and he slipped to one knee in time to catch a boot to the face. 

He ripped the device off his shoulder, feeling a chunk of skin come with it, and when she swung forward to kick him again, he caught her foot and twisted, feeling the sickening crack when her knee dislocated. She cried out and fell to the ground. She scrambled for her bag again, but Steve kicked it away, moving on to the next threat. Thor, Clint, and Natasha were each taking on their own enemies in hand-to-hand, but a new line of enemies had shifted back, digging around for weapons. 

Steve charged in, bouncing the shield off one man's face and into the gut of another. They rose and swarmed him. Something ripped across his ankle with searing heat, but he ignored it, focused on breaking their ranks so he could get through to the landing pad, one building away. He took a heavily-gloved hit to the face and tipped back, landing on his ass. The man who hit him charged forward, landing on top of Steve and wailing into him with uncontrolled but furious blows. Steve bucked and shifted, trying to get the angles in his favour, but the man pinned Steve's hips with his thighs and continued with his assault.

Then he was gone, ripped away between punches, and Steve looked up to see Natasha standing over him, trading blows with the man. Steve slipped out from under them and grabbed his shield, slamming it into the side of the man's head and sending him to the ground.

A steady  _ chug chug  _ broke through the sounds of battle: the helicopter starting up. Steve looked up to see a man in the pilot's seat of the chopper, headset on, getting ready to take off. Steve shot Natasha a look then held up his shield and plowed straight through the HYDRA agents around him until he broke free of the battle. He slotted the shield onto his back and ran full tilt for the gap between the two buildings, ignoring whatever might be going on behind him. When he reached the end, he pushed off with all his strength. He flew over the forty-foot drop and managed to catch the edge of the other building. His feet slipped against the smooth concrete, but he settled his grip on the ledge and hauled up, pulling himself up and over onto the gravel surface of the roof. 

The chopper thrummed up to speed and lifted a rail off the ground. Steve kept running. He didn't hesitate; when he was close enough, he pushed off again, jumping up as high as he could. He caught the rail of chopper in one hand and heaved up the other one to join it. The pilot either didn't notice the additional weight, or he didn't care. He angled the helicopter away from the buildings and took off at full speed.

Steve swore, scrambling to get a better handhold on the slippery rail. The buildings disappeared from under his feet, and it was only a moment before he was too high up and too far away to let go safely. If the injuries he'd sustained jumping out of the 11th floor were bad, this fall would certainly kill him. 

When the chopper steadied out a little, Steve was able to pull himself up and get his leg hooked over the rail until he shifted up so he was straddling it, bracing one hand against the body. The wind tugged at his hair and made him blink hard to keep his vision clear. They were headed straight for the water; Steve could see it twinkling and flashing on the horizon.

He had to get this bird turned around. He shuffled along the rail, staying tight to the body of the helicopter in the hopes that the pilot wouldn't hear him. His comm broke into static a few times, and once, he could hear Tony talking, but it didn't seem directed towards him, so he ignored it, staying quiet and hoping Tony was already on his way to safety.

The back door of the chopper had been left open in the pilot's rush to escape, and Steve hooked his hands over the edge and pulled himself up onto the floor, into the back. Even staying low, he could see the entire space behind the cockpit was packed to the gills with the repulsor bombs. Crate after crate of them stacked on top of each other to fill the space. Their centres were unlit now, but Steve imagined a whole helicopter's worth of them glowing blue and dead-dropped on some unsuspecting town, and his heart flipped in his chest. What they'd faced in Rochester was nothing to what these things were really capable of.

Steve weighed his options. He could grab the pilot, try to get control of the chopper, or he could attempt to unclip the housings for the crates without the pilot noticing, then push the whole lot out into the water as soon as they were over the ocean.

The second plan wasn't great - dropping bombs randomly out of the sky was never a good idea - but it was easier to enact. He didn't know what the pilot might have up his sleeves. He should probably at least try to unhook the crates, just in case. Then, ideally, he could find a way to disable the pilot and bring this thing back to the landing pad.

Then again, Steve had never been particularly good at stealth.

Steve bumped his foot against the crate and winced when the sound carried. With a growl, the pilot spun in his chair and bared his teeth at Steve. "What the  _ fuck?!"  _ He lunged, but the cables on his headset held him back, and he ripped it off angrily. Steve rolled to the side to avoid his second lunge, and the chopper shifted violently to the left, throwing them both off their feet. It tilted dangerously, and Steve's stomach rolled. He forced himself to focus on the HYDRA agent in front of him instead of the way the ground spun below them.

"You're not gonna like how this ends," he told the pilot. "If you let me fly this thing back, I can turn you over to SHIELD. They'll take it easy on you. Your other options aren't so nice."

"Fuck you!" The man dove again, but Steve had nowhere to maneuver this time, and he caught him in a full rugby tackle. They smashed into the side of the crates which shifted but didn't break loose. 

Steve caught him in the face with a fist, one hand clenched around the man's upper arm so he wouldn't fly straight out of the chopper. Righteous fury or not, a Captain America punch to the face had serious impact, and the man howled, blood cascading from his broken nose. Instead of giving up, though, he shoved hard at Steve, managing to catch him right in the gash he was still sporting on his side from the explosion. He ducked under Steve's arm when he flinched from the pain and scrambled back into the cockpit. Steve darted forward and grabbed the man's ankle, but when he pulled him back across the floor to sprawl on his back in front of Steve, he was smiling. And he had a remote control held in one hand. 

Steve snatched for it, but he was too late. The inside of the helicopter lit up blue as all the bombs armed at once. The man laughed, high and maniacal, and threw the remote sideways out of the open door. Steve lunged again, but it was hopeless. The remote tumbled out into the open sky and disappeared. He looked back down at the man who wasn't even trying to fight anymore. "How do you disarm them?"

"You can't." 

The chopper shifted, and Steve winced. They could go off any minute.

"Oh, they won't go off that way," the man said. "These are set on a timer. They're a little more advanced from the last time you encountered them. You can thank your buddy Stark for that. Enjoy your last sixty seconds of life, Cap. Just enough time to call your girl and tell her goodbye. Oh wait, she won't even remember you, will she?"

Steve slammed his fist into the back of the pilot's seat then abandoned the laughing man to turn to the bombs. Sixty seconds… he could unclamp them and push them out of the helicopter. But even as he considered it, his hand dropped to the rigging and knew there wouldn't be enough time to take it apart. It was already too late. 

He turned to face the man again and found him gone. Steve stared at the empty space on the floor where he'd been sprawled a moment ago, and he didn't find himself feeling particularly bad that the man who had doomed him to do the same was falling to his death. These HYDRA agents were so willing to die for their cause, and Steve was starting to wonder if it wasn't the cheap way out.

And yet, this time, there didn't seem to be much else he could do, himself.

“Iron Man - Tony,” Steve bit out, his heart clenching in his chest. “Code Icarus.”

There was a furious blast of static then Tony’s sharp voice cut through, short and broken by ragged breaths. “No, no, no, Steve. I'm not out yet. I can’t get there in time.”

“It’s okay.” Twenty seconds...

"Call Thor!"

"I can't, my comm is stuck on the long-range frequency. Only you can hear me. Tony, I have to go. This thing's going to blow. I stopped the shipment, though. These weapons won't be hurting anyone."

“Don’t jump!” Tony barked out. He grunted with effort

“I don’t have a choice.” Steve felt oddly calm as he wrapped his belt around the cyclic. The chopper started to climb dramatically. “You’ll get here if you can. I trust you. Tony, if you can’t make it, it’s okay.” He counted down to ten seconds left.

“No, no,  _ shit  _ Steve. Don’t jump!”

Steve didn't say anything. He didn't know what to say. What should your last words be to the man you love who doesn't even know you love him? He wished he could say something that would make Tony believe it was okay, that would keep him from shouldering the guilt that he hadn't made it in time. He'd get over it eventually, though. Nat would make sure of it. Steve had to believe that.

Three seconds. He leapt backwards.

A heartbeat later, the helicopter exploded.


	13. Chapter 13

Steve tucked into a ball as he tumbled through the air, covering his face with his arms. Prickling heat washed over him, shrapnel ripping at his uniform and scratching any exposed skin. The shockwave of the explosion rocketed him through the air and when he opened his eyes again, the black cloud that was once the helicopter was far away.

But the weapons were destroyed, and that was what really mattered. Nat, Clint and Thor would take care of the agents still on the ground. SHIELD would clear out any weapons they were still storing, now that they knew where to look. So, Steve had done what he'd come to do, what Tony had asked him to do.

Tony.

The air whipped raggedly around Steve’s face and he spun, facing down, as much as it made his heart pound. They'd barely been away from the coast when they'd fought, and with the combination of the banking of the helicopter and the power of the explosion, Steve had been knocked back over the mainland. The ground loomed, still far away but approaching rapidly. Steve spread himself as wide as he could, but there was nothing he could do to slow his descent. And Tony wouldn't make it in time.

“Tony?” he asked, but the wind snagged his words and pulled them away, and all he could hear through the comm was static. The thought that he would never get to tell Tony how he felt wormed its way deep into his gut and twisted sharply. “I’m in love with you,” he whispered to the uncaring sky. Despair gave way to panic as the ground approached rapidly. There was no water to soften the blow this time, no plane to take the brunt of the impact. Steve was going to die, and he’d never found out what Tony’s lips tasted like.

The wind rushed louder now, groaning and thrumming in his ears, and Steve squeezed his eyes shut, braced himself for impact. If only the - _but that wasn’t wind._ Steve spun in the air, flipping himself on his back and, if he’d been able to, he would have sobbed with relief. That was the sound of repulsors: _Tony._

Tony cut across the sky, impossibly fast, all four repulsors on maximum. He powered through the air until he was nearly level with Steve, then he shot his hands out, repulsors flaring on either side of Steve's face, to match his speed to Steve’s so they wouldn’t collide.

Even though Steve was falling away from him, the way Tony scooped him into his arms felt like falling into Tony. Steve threw his arms around Tony’s neck and buried his face into the chest plate. Tony changed angle, arms locked tightly around Steve's waist, and they shot off, back into the sky. Steve’s perfect, analytical mind, knew they’d been less than a hundred feet from the ground when Tony’s had found him.

Now that they were sailing up instead off plummeting down, Steve realized he could hear Tony muttering to himself, but not through the comm, but through the speakers of the suit. Tony leveled out, Steve hanging below in the cage of his arms, facing the clear blue sky and the red and gold of Iron Man.

“- tell him _expressly_ not to jump and the stupid _idiot_ goes and jumps anyway and nearly kills himself. Fuck, I am too old for this goddamn heart attack. You are in so much fucking trouble -”

“Tony,” Steve gasped.

“- flinging himself off of things like it’s his goddamn job. You will be the fucking _end_ of me, Steve Rogers. I swear to god. And the last thing I hear is ‘Tony, I’m in love with you’? What the fuck is up with that? And then nothing but fucking static and I didn’t even get a chance to tell you how I feel and -”

 _“Tony!”_ Manic laughter burst up out of Steve’s chest. He was _alive._ And Tony was here. And he knew. They powered their way over the treetops, heading back to the city, and Steve clung gleefully to Tony’s shoulders, unable to tamp down his wild grin. He knew he must be a little loopy from the endorphins and adrenaline, but he didn’t think he’d ever been so happy in his life, and he didn’t even know what Tony was going to say.

 

The faceplate sprung back, and Tony’s intense brown eyes met Steve’s. They brimmed with complicated, overwhelming emotion that would have stolen Steve’s breath from his lungs if their near supersonic flight hadn’t already done that. “God, I love you too. So much. You _asshole.”_

Steve laughed again and tightened his hold so he could stretch up and press his lips to Tony’s. Steve was chilled and nearly numb from his fall, but Tony was still warm from being encased in the armour, and as soon as their mouths met, Steve sighed with relief as the heat spread from his lips to his cheeks then flushed straight down his spine to pool in his stomach. Tony clutched him closer, pushing the kiss deeper, holding him tight enough that the metal plates dug into his ribs painfully, but Steve didn’t care, he needed it to hurt to remind him that this was really happening.

“Tony,” he murmured into the kiss. In response, Tony tipped his chin to angle the kiss so he could run his tongue along the seam of Steve’s lips. All at once, Steve remembered that they were airborne, and he pulled back, his eyes flicking down to Tony’s lips as soon as they were revealed. Tony held him tight and spiraled up into the air in a wild corkscrew before curving back around the smoking wreckage of the quinjet.

Clint had his bow trained on a crowd of HYDRA agents the team had restrained on the rooftop, sitting in a circle with their hand bound behind their backs. Nat was on the phone several feet away, but when she looked up and saw Tony and Steve coming in for a landing she visibly sighed with relief then shook her head at Steve in clear exasperation.

Tony settled the two of them on the rooftop, but his arm tightened around Steve's waist before he let him go. Steve didn't go far, wishing he could stay clung to Tony, rip him out of the armour and feel him, safe and alive in his arms, but there would be time for that later, when they weren't in front of most of their teammates and a bunch of HYDRA agents.

Still, as he spoke to Nat and Clint, and then the SHIELD liason on the phone, Steve's lips tingled with the phantom press of Tony's. He couldn't help glancing up every now and then to trace the edge of Tony's jaw with his eyes, wonder what it would be like to follow those cheekbones with his fingers instead. Romance should have been the absolute last thing on his mind, but Steve had missed one too many chances in his life for waiting, and the second he had Tony to himself, he needed to say again, to his face, what he'd already thrown once to the clouds. He wanted to see Tony's expression when Steve told him he loved him, wanting to feel that smile in another kiss with no metal between them.

And, despite his comfort with Iron Man-propelled flight now, preferably on solid ground.

"Cap?"

He spun around to see Clint watching him out of the corner of his eye, the rest trained on the group of HYDRA agents. "Hmm?"

"You okay? You're doing some pretty solid blank staring there."

Steve shook his head. "Sorry. I'm a bit -" he made a vague gesture.

"Yeah," Clint agreed.

"SHIELD's sending a couple buses," Nat said, appearing beside them, her phone still held in her hand. "I gave Bruce the rundown too."

"Thank you. Everyone's okay?"

"If you and Tony are okay, yes," Clint said.

"Yeah, we're - Tony caught me."

Nat squeezed his shoulder. "Good."

Steve winced, the shock giving way somewhat to aching muscles and a pounding headache.

It didn't take long for SHIELD to arrive, two long airships descending on the rooftop in a swirl of dust. Hill was the first off the bus, and it became clear that Nat had given her the very briefest of explanations. While some agents carted off the members of HYDRA they'd arrested, Hill grilled Nat, Clint, and Steve about what had happened.

Tony was the one that would best be able to answer their questions, but as one, the three Avengers carefully kept mentions of him to a minimum. It still wasn't entirely clear what his involvement was, but they were a team, and SHIELD didn't own them anymore. Steve would be damned if Hill knew what had happened before he did.

If she tried to take Tony away to be questioned, Steve wouldn't hesitate to take him back. By force, if necessary.

"Look, we're all exhausted," Steve said diplomatically. "And we haven't had a chance to debrief. You can hold these guys for twenty-four hours without anything else. We'll give you everything you need tomorrow morning. That is, assuming a search of this building doesn't answer all your questions, anyway."

Hill eyed him up for a moment then nodded. "You can take the other bus home. We'll send someone to pick it up tomorrow, along with your team if need be, Cap. I have a feeling this mess goes a lot deeper than a couple rogue HYDRA agents selling weapons."

 _You and me both,_ Steve thought. But he kept his face carefully impassive, and she trotted off to direct her team into action.

Clint, Thor, Nat, Tony, and Steve all piled into the airship, and Clint rumbled it to life. No one talked for the flight back, as much as Steve could feel the questions buzzing around the room. Whether they were waiting until Bruce could join them, or that they all needed a moment to breathe, alone and in their own heads, before they dove in, Steve didn't know. What he did know, was that the questions he most wanted to ask weren't the same as the others Avengers'.

_Do you really love me? What did that kiss mean? Was it just the heat of the moment, or is this the start of something?_

Starting something sounded thrilling and terrifying and amazing all at once, and Steve's fingers twitched to move towards Tony. To touch. To hold him close and find out if all of this was really real, had really happened.

Bruce was waiting on the landing pad for them, one arm held up to block the wind that whipped his hair around his face.

Tony hopped out onto the landing pad and stepped out of the armour which flew away on its own, disappearing into a portal near the top of the tower. Steve's eyes were fixed to Tony's face, so his heart stopped when Thor said, "You're injured," and frowned down at Tony's hands.

Tony lifted his right hand and frowned at it too. "Oh yeah. It got caught in some rigging while I was trying to bust my way out of where they had me held. It's fine. Nothing's broken." He wiggled his fingers, and they did all move, but he winced. The skin was a mottled pattern of black and blue, a long gash slicing from between his pointer and index finger down to his wrist.

"Let's get you fixed up," Bruce said softly, guiding Tony towards the elevators.

They all headed down to Tony's lab through some unspoken agreement. Tony collapsed on the couch, and Steve sat down next to him, a few cautious feet between them, when he saw that Bruce was already getting down the first aid kit.

Bruce patched up Tony, while Nat patched up Thor, and Clint patched up himself. Steve didn't have anything bandage-worthy, the wound on his shoulder was already healing, so he watched while the others put themselves back together.

Tony looked deeply uncomfortable.

"Alright," Clint said gently. "Time to spill, Stark. What on earth just happened?"

Tony took a deep, steadying breath, then tipped his head back so he was talking to the ceiling. "It started shortly after Steve moved into the tower. I noticed a couple of odd things going on. JARVIS was throwing errors he shouldn't, small issues with the code, chinks in my digital armour. I poured over everything, tightening security wherever I could, but my focus was on preventing potential hackers from getting information _out,_ not sneaking information _in._

"I was tired - trying to handle SI, Avengers training, and now this as well - and I made mistakes, failed to see the bigger picture."

Steve thought back on those first weeks. Tony had been snappish and moody, dark circles under his eyes. He hadn't been sleeping much - he'd admitted it to Steve. And now he knew he was trying to juggle three full-time jobs on his own. Protecting everyone, all by himself.

"You didn't have to face that alone," Bruce said, voicing Steve's thoughts.

Tony shrugged. "I know… I just. Did. Besides, the kind of work it was, no offense but none of you would have been able to actually help. Looking back, I should have told you, of course I should have." His eyes settled on Steve. "I'm sorry. I guess I thought that since I was putting all of you up, it was my responsibility to make the tower a safe place for you and your information. It didn't feel like an Avengers problem. It felt like a Stark problem."

Bruce tugged at the bandages, and Tony hissed. Steve cringed in sympathy, wishing he could offer some comfort - a hug or to hold his other hand - but Tony maintained the careful space between them, and Steve didn't want to break through no man's land with everyone watching. Partly, because they hadn't talked about how open Tony wanted to be about this thing between them,, and partly, because if Tony rebuffed him, he didn't need that embarrassment to take place in front of their friends and teammates.

Tony looked away from his hand and plowed on. "Then it got worse. The portal opened, and Mr Tentacles came through, and when I scanned the edges of the portal I got some really wacky results. I was able to close it with repulsor tech because someone had _opened it with repulsor tech._ And wasn't that hinky, because no one has that advanced a version of that technology besides me.

"I assumed someone else had developed it on their own, and I started keeping an eye out for who that might be. I thought we might have a baby baddie on our hand, one with a mind for engineering, but it wasn't anything more than a hunch, so, again, I didn't bother saying anything."

"Tony…" Nat breathed, but it wasn't a rebuke, it was sad.

"Then we fought the repulsor bombs. And I knew. I knew someone was using my own tech against me. It felt pointed, a huge, flashing, neon arrow pointed right at me. I - I stole one. I hid it on the quinjet in my go-bag and took it back to my lab after." He looked up at Steve again, and his eyes were so sad, Steve's breath caught in his throat. "I didn't trust you guys enough yet, and there was a chance this would come back to point at me. I saw the pieces starting to fall into place so I threw everything I had into figuring it out.

"And then Cap fell."

Steve looked up sharply.

"You needed help. I couldn't stand to see something like that happen again. So I set the other stuff to the side and focused on you."

"Tony I -"

"No, no, it wasn't your fault. It was my fault. And I still couldn't seem to tell you, even with all those mornings at the gym together. Even after we - b-became friends," he stuttered around it, and Steve could see the memory of their kiss glowing behind his eyes. "I started trying to reverse engineer the things they were building. That's why you saw the replica version. I was trying to figure out which tech of mine they had they had led to their plans. It wasn't the most advanced version, that was clear.

"Anyway. That 'work call' JARVIS had for me, that night, last night - wow, it feels like four years ago, but yeah last night - it was really an alert, about that shipment going out. He'd been watching certain channels for me. If I'd been more careful I would have checked the source better, done more confirming, but I was eager to check it out and get some concrete evidence to bring back to you." The 'you' was directed towards all of them, but Tony's eyes flicked back to Steve's before settling on his lap.

Bruce finished wrapped Tony's hand and leaned back, tugging his glasses off.

"And, well, it was a trap, obviously. They caught me out. Like I said, Hammer orchestrated all of this from jail. He hired it out, got a few people whose companies have suffered for having SI as a competitor, sprayed money at the problem. Somehow he got his hands on an old piece of the previous armour, and he might be an idiot, but he's a genius idiot. He was able to figure it out from there. He designed the stuff in his cell, sent the designs out to his manufacturers, and that was that." Tony fell back against the couch with a huff. "The rest you know."

Steve coughed. "The HYDRA guy with the bomb, in Trenton? He told me there was a mole on the team, that if he wanted to stop the weapons we needed to 'cleanse from within.' I didn't believe him."

Tony nodded. "He didn't know it wasn't me. HYDRA really thought I was the one selling them everything. Honestly, the most surprising part of all this is that Hammer managed to keep from screeching for so long about how amazing and smart he was to fool everyone."

"SHIELD sent someone to the prison where Hamner's being held," Nat said ominously.

"Good," Steve added.

As much as Steve wanted to grab Tony and shake him, demand to know why he hadn't told them, why he hadn't asked for help with this, he knew he had no right to. He understood; he probably would have done the same thing in his place. Just because they'd been thrown together and called a team didn't mean they were one. That was something you had to earn. And they'd been trying, they'd all been trying, but it wasn't something that came easily. Especially with a group of people who were so used to fighting their own battles, to being forced to fight alone and then lose everyone who tried to help.

He hoped, believed, they were getting better.

Nat flicked her eyes over to Steve's then stood suddenly. "There's more to talk through, but for now, you should get some rest, Tony. We'll have a full debrief tomorrow, yeah Steve?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Let me know if that starts to itch too much," Bruce said with a gesture at Tony's hand. He waved it at him in acknowledgment.

"Well fought, friends." Thor patted each of them on the back then threw his arm around Clint's shoulders and walked off with him, recounting his favourite parts of the battle, complete with sound effects.

The other two filed out after, and Steve and Tony were suddenly alone.

They hung there in semi-awkward silence for a moment, until Steve girded his loins and turned to Tony with a look of determination on his face. "Well. I guess we should have that conversation we were going to have last night."

Tony blinked at him in utter confusion. "What? I thought we just did…?" He gestured vaguely towards the doorway the others had disappeared through.

"What?" Steve could feel heat creeping up the back of his neck as his incredible tactical mind started fitting pieces together.

"I was going to come up last night and spill, tell you about the weapons and the tracking and all of my suspicions. I was going to apologize for hiding it from you," Tony said, like it was obvious.

Steve clenched his jaw until his teeth complained then forcibly relaxed it. "Oh," he said, because what else was there to say?

Tony scooted a little closer. His voice dropped low. "What did you think I was coming up to talk about?"

Steve opened and closed his mouth a few times, then turned away from Tony so he could think through the answer without those big, beautiful, brown eyes gazing at him in unabashed curiosity. He fortified his defenses then turned back. "I thought we were going to talk about feelings. I thought you were going to tell me you were in love with me."

He left off the other option, the one where Tony told him to get over his pathetic crush, because Tony had said he loved Steve too, right? They'd kissed… so… Tony must have feelings too.

Right?

"Oh." Tony was still gazing at him, expression unreadable, then it slipped a bit, and Steve's heart cracked, ready to shatter, because it slipped towards sad. "No… no, I wasn't going to say that."

"Right. Well -"

"I would never say that," Tony barreled on. "I would have let it go on forever, wishing I could have you, wishing I could hold you and kiss you and tell you how I really feel. I would have kept flirting with you, kept making excuses for us to spend time together. But I never would have said so. I'm not brave enough."

Steve took a breath and crossed the no man's land between them, slipping his fingers between Tony's. Tony took them and squeezed, making it clear that he wasn't allowed to pull back. Then Steve remembered his bruised hand. He jerked away but Tony held fast. "Tony, your hand -"

"I don't care."

Steve rolled his eyes up from their clasped hands to Tony's face. It was _glowing._ "Fuck it," Steve whispered. "I'm brave enough to let a crazy man in a tin can whip me out of the clouds, I can handle this." He shifted forward until Tony's bent knee was practically in his lap. He leaned in, using his free hand to cup Tony's jaw and guide their faces close together. Tony gave in to the hold easily, his eyes fluttering shut. "I'm so in love with you," Steve said against Tony's lips, and Tony broke into the most brilliant smile Steve had ever seen, though he only let it beam for a few seconds before he claimed those lips for himself.

Tony gave into the kiss more easily than he'd given into anything Steve had asked of him before. He melted against Steve's body, his free hand landing on Steve's thigh to steady himself, fingers digging in. Steve shifted his hand from Tony's jaw around to the back of his neck, brushing over his ear and furrowing his fingers through his hair. He held Tony close, angling the kiss deeper when Tony showed no signs of wanting to pull away. It was warm and soft and so, so easy, in the end.

When they finally pulled away for air, Tony broke back into the same grin. He teased the bare patch of skin where Steve's shirt had ridden up with one finger. "You know…" he drawled, and Steve arched an eyebrow, sure that what was about to come out of Tony's mouth would either make him groan or blush. Or both. "You were dying when you said it the first time."

"What?"

"You thought you were going to die when you first told me you loved me. You also didn't think I could hear you."

"I guess..." Steve pulled Tony closer, fully into this lap now, and Tony settled in, humming with pleasure when Steve's arm came around his waist. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Well. There's a free pass for dying confessions, so if you'd asked me to, I would have let it go without making it a thing." Tony was grinning so wide now he was nearly vibrating with it.

Steve snorted. "But I just told you again, now, and I'm not about to die anymore."

"I know." Tony shrugged. "Now you've screwed yourself. No take-backsies."

"I don't want any." Steve gave him another quick peck, grinning too. "I _want_ to make it a thing. I love you, Tony Stark."

"I love you, too." Tony threw it out easily, but Steve thrilled, clutching Tony closer. That was the first time _he'd_ said it, not under the pressure of adrenaline and terror.

"Now _you_ can't take it back," Steve mumbled against his lips.

"Don't wanna."

This time it was Tony that drew Steve in, dropping Steve's hand to hold either side of his face, thumbs stroking over his cheekbones. Steve relaxed back into the couch, one hand curled around Tony's hip, the other resting on his knee. Tony's warm weight pressed against his chest, and his soft lips moved against Steve's. Steve's eyes flickered closed, and he let himself get lost in the kiss. It felt like falling and flying and spinning all at the same time. It didn't seem to matter whether they were in the sky or not, Tony was always going to make him feel that way.

Steve grinned, leaning in to chase the warmth of Tony's lips as he pulled away. "I think I'm going to keep falling in love with you over and over for a very long time."

"Good." Tony stole another kiss, his thumb brushing across Steve's cheek then over the curve of his ear. "Because I will always catch you."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! You can follow me on tumbr at festiveferret.tumblr.com. 
> 
> Check out MusicalLuna's amazing artwork on [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14638451) and on [tumblr](https://musicalluna-draws.tumblr.com/post/173871541957/my-art-for-my-rbb-with-festiveferret-who-wrote)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Code Icarus Art](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14638451) by [MusicalLuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicalLuna/pseuds/MusicalLuna)




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